Coming Thursday, May 17, will mark a month to the hunger strike, with over 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails participating in it. As Israel refuses to accept the prisoners’ demands for their basic rights, including humane treatment, many of them face immediate risk of death as the world watches over in silence.

The prisoners have decided to live in dignity or starve to death in their isolation cells, and a global mobilization is urgently needed to break the deafening silence! A month into the hunger strike, join a

Global 24-hour hunger strike
In front of Israeli embassies, consulates and UN offices
May 17, 2012

Endorse the Palestinian civil society call for a boycott of G4S due to its complicity in Israel’s violations ofPalestinian prisoners’ rights

Click here to pledge to join the Global 24-hour hunger strike
Email if you are organizing a sit-in in your community

Background 

More than two weeks ago, some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners have launched an open-ended hunger strike and their life is in danger. Their demands are simple and the strike’s slogan, echoing through the prison walls, is just as plain- freedom or death. The lives of all prisoners on strike are currently under danger, but among them is a smaller group, which has been striking for a longer period and whose lives are under immediate threat.

Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab have not eaten for more than 70 days – since the 29th of February. Israeli courtshave rejected their appeals and refused to free them from administrative detention where they remain without charge or trial, subject to secret evidence and secret allegations. They are in critical condition.

Hassan Safadi has been refusing food since the 2nd of March, Omar Abu Shalal, 54, since the 4th of March, Mahmoud Sarsak, the only Gazan to have been incarcerated under Israel’s Illegal Combatants Law, since the 24th of March, Mohammed al-Taj, 40, also since the 24th of March and Ja’afar Ezzadeen, 41, since the 27th of march.

The Prisoners’ key demands include:

• Ending the policy of solitary confinement and isolation;
• End to the use of administrative detentions;
• The restoration of visitation rights to families of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, a right that has been denied to all families for more than 6 years;
• Canceling ‘Shalit’ law, which restricts prisoners’ access to educational materials as punitive measure. The law remains intact despite a prisoner swap deal last October.
• Ending systematic humiliation, including arbitrary strip searches, nightly raids and collective punishment.

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike have been hit hard with retaliation from Israel Prison Services, includingbeatings, transferring from one prison to another, confiscation of salt (an act that could have severe healthconsequences for hunger strikers), denial of family and lawyer visits, and isolation and solitary confinement ofhunger strikers.

In response, Human Rights Watch issued a statement chiding Israel’s over its administrative detention policy; it said, “It shouldn’t take the self-starvation of Palestinian prisoners for Israel to realize it is violating their due process rights.” Amnesty International also issued a call for urgent action from individuals around the world to contact Israeli authorities about Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh.

Emphasizing imprisonment as a critical component of Israel’s system of occupation, colonialism and apartheid practiced against the Palestinian people, Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations have called for intensifying the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to target corporations profiting directly from the Israeli prison system. In particular, we call for action to be taken to hold to account G4S, the world’s largest international security corporation, which helps to maintain and profit from Israel’s prison system, for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.

Signed:
Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

This is what has happened to Palestinian national soccer team member Mahmoud Sarsak. Sarsak, who hails from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, was seized at a checkpoint on his way to a national team contest in the West Bank. This was July 2009. Since that date, the 25-year-old has been held without trial and without charges. His family and friends haven’t been permitted to see him. In the eyes of the Israeli government, Sarsak can be imprisoned indefinitely because they deem him to be an “illegal combatant” although no one—neither family, nor friends, nor coaches—has the foggiest idea why. Now Sarsak is one of more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike to protest their conditions and lack of civil liberties. As the New York Times wrote last week, “The newest heroes of the Palestinian cause are not burly young men hurling stones or wielding automatic weapons. They are gaunt adults, wrists in chains, starving themselves inside Israeli prisons.”

But no organization has claimed Sarsak as a member or issued fiery calls for his freedom. All we have is a family and a team that are both bewildered and devastated by his indefinite detention. His brother Iman said, “My family never imagined that Mahmoud would have been imprisoned by Israel. Why, really why?”

His family doesn’t understand how someone, whose obsession was soccer, not politics, could be targeted and held in such a manner. But in today’s Israel/Palestine, soccer is politics. Sarsak is only the latest Palestinian player to be singled out for harassment or even death by the Israeli government. In 2009, three national team players, Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshtahe, were killed during the bombing of Gaza. The National Stadium as well as the offices of the Palestinian Football Association were also targeted and destroyed in the Gaza bombing. In addition, their goalie, Omar Abu Rwayyis, was arrested by Israeli police in 2012 on “terrorism charges.” If you degrade the national team, you degrade the idea that there could ever be a nation.

More than police violence is a part of this process of athletic degradation. Currently the Palestinian soccer team is ranked 164th in the world and they’ve have never been higher than 115th. As one sports writer put it delicately, “Given the passion for football that burns among Palestinians, such lowly status hints at problems on the ground.”

These problems on the ground include curfews and checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza that often mean the forfeiting of matches. If Palestinians living in Israel’s borders want to play for the team, they have to give up any benefits of Israeli citizenship. The end result is that the Palestinian national team becomes dependent on the Diaspora, relying heavily on Palestinians who have lived for two and three generations in South America and Europe. This is why many of the key players on Palestine’s national team are named Roberto or Pablo.

In 2010, Michel Platini, president of European football’s ruling body—Israel plays in the European qualifiers—threatened Israel with expulsion from FIFA if it continues to undermine football in Palestine. Platini said, “Israel must choose between allowing Palestinian sport to continue and prosper or be forced to face the consequences for their behaviour.” Yet Platini never followed through on threats and quite the opposite, awarded Israel the 2013 Under-21 European Championships.

On Wednesday, the British organization Soccer Without Borders, said that they would be calling for a boycott of the tournament, writing:

Football Beyond Borders, a student-led organisation which uses the universal power of football to tackle political, social and cultural issues, stands in solidarity with Mahmoud Sarsak and all of the Palestinian political prisoners currently being detained by Israel on hunger strike, as together we protest the injustices being inflicted upon Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and draw attention to their plight. [We] take this opportunity to announce our official boycott of the UEFA 2013 Under-21 European Championships, which Israel has been awarded the honour of hosting.

Soccer Without Borders joined forty-two football clubs and dozens of team captains, managers and sports commentators in Gaza who submitted a letter to Platini in 2011 demanding that European football’s governing body reverse its decision to allow Israel to host the under-21 tournament.

Amidst all this tumult is Mahmoud Sarsak, a threat for reasons no one can comprehend and Israel will not reveal. As long as Sarsak remains indefinitely detained and as long as Israel targets sport and athletes as legitimate targets of war, they have no business being rewarded by FIFA or the UEFA, let alone even being a part of the community of international sports. If Sarsak is to see the inside of a courtroom and if Israel is to, as Platini said, “face the consequences for their behaviour,” silence is not an option. After all, even a Celtic fan would surely agree, we’d do it for Kobe.

Original Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/167827/what-if-kobe-bryant-were-imprisoned-palestinian-soccer-player

In May the European Parliament is set to vote on a new trade agreement with Israel. If passed, the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA) would remove barriers to trade between Israel and member states in industrial products, especially pharmaceuticals.

Such an agreement would strengthen EU-Israel relations and would reward Israel for its continued violations of international law.

The European Union claims to implement a policy of “positive engagement” with Israel. This policy has failed: despite numerous EU condemnations, Israel has continued its gross infringements of universal human rights with impunity. Israel’s settlements have expanded, the blockade on Gaza remains and new laws to discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel have been introduced.

Following the Gaza massacre of 2008-09, the EU vowed to not implement any further upgrades in EU-Israel relations. The implementation of the ACAA agreement would be a betrayal of this policy that will only encourage further Israeli violations of international law.

A concerted effort across Europe can still stop this agreement.

Take action:

1. Write to your MEPs and ask them to vote against ACAA
You can find contact details for your MEPs here.
Target MEPs from the European People’s Party (EPP), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) groups.

2. Sign or set up and distribute online petitions

Online petition have been created in Spain; Poland; Germany, Italy; France; Belgique andBelgië.

3. Write letters and articles for publication online and in newspapers

4. Distribute this call for action through your networks

As the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel continues to grow internationally, it is lagging in the Arab World – particularly within Gulf monarchies, where boycotting Israel is muddled by these monarchies’ close relationship with the United States and its allies.

In March, a bell pepper with a label indicating that it originated from Israel was found in one of Kuwait’s largest retail stores. Ironically, the pepper was bought by a volunteer for pro-Palestinian group Kuwaitis for Jerusalem.

Immediately a photograph of the pepper, with its label, was passed around social hubs such as Twitter, Facebook, and others forums, triggering debates regarding the nature and efficiency the Israel boycott.

This incident was not the first of its kind in Kuwait. Sporadically, an Israeli product or a product with Hebrew markings is found, and the local media stirs to attention. These cases are usually swiftly dealt with by the authorities and forgotten until the next incident rears its head.

Boycotting Israel in Kuwait is a very delicate issue in comparison to other Arab countries. It is not quite like Syria, in which Israeli goods and products are strictly unwelcome nor is it as open as Jordan or Qatar, where direct political and economic relations with Israel are active.

The Current Climate of Boycotting Israel

“The 1990s were the worst in terms of boycotting Israel. If you visit the head [Arab League Boycott] office in Damascus, you’ll see that they are very demoralized. Everybody ignored them after Oslo,” said a prominent Palestinian historian residing in Kuwait, who requested anonymity.

“The boycott in Kuwait is [currently] very loose; we hear in the newspapers that so and so was discovered here or there. They report this all the time. But there is no official or popular follow-up. People are demoralized after Oslo and Jordan [1994 peace deal],” he added.

An official within the Arab League dealing with Palestinian Affairs, and who also requested anonymity, echoed the sentiments of the historian in regards to the deterioration of Arab boycott efforts against Israel.

The Arab League boycott laws are still in place, he noted, and every six months a black list is revised, pointing to the current debates regarding Adidas as a recent example.

The official stressed that despite these laws, obstacles to an efficient boycott have been added by Arab states’ acceptance of American contentions of “peace” as well as concerns that any act sanctioning or boycotting Israel will be labeled as provocation and incitement.

The best thing one can do, he suggested, is to activate popular action, encouraging the greater public to complain to retailers, policy makers, and the press whenever an Israeli product is found. The public at large should bear the burden of overseeing the market if boycott violation occurs.

The Resurgence of Kuwaiti Popular Action

In Kuwait, support for Palestinians is typically articulated by Islamic organizations and charities, as the Palestinian historian pointed out.

Kuwaitis for Jerusalem, established in 1987-88 during the First Intifada, have been heavily involved in a number of campaigns, from raising awareness to music events in support of the Palestinian cause. Through this organization, members and volunteers have begun work to establish a BDS Chapter in Kuwait.

Hania al-Ariqy, a member of Kuwaitis for Jerusalem and one of the driving forces behind initiating a BDS Chapter, spoke briefly with Al-Akhbar.

Ariqy pointed out that the general BDS movement in the Arab region is severely lacking. “Where is it? In the Gulf region, it is virtually nonexistent. In Egypt, they just started. The only country that is actively doing it is Lebanon – because the political situation in the country and the continuous Israeli aggression, especially in 2006, kept the issue alive for the public.”

She said that the organization has faced no obstacles from the government so far, though that they have not officially launched yet. Nevertheless, she expects no restrictions from the authorities.

“The environment in Kuwait is much more welcoming to boycotting Israel than it is in other Gulf countries…You should consider that on the political level, there is no parliament [in other Gulf states],” she said.

She added that because of the parliament’s current composition, it would be publicly difficult for them to take a stance against the Palestinian cause.

Considering any lingering hostility towards Palestinians from the Kuwaiti public due to support of the Iraqi invasion from Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian political figures, she said, “I think it’s a thing of the past. I’m a member of Kuwaitis for Jerusalem and we started in 1988, during the First Intifada. When the Iraqi invasion happened, we halted our activities completely. It took us a long time to restart again, until 2000 – 10 years.”

Optimism on the Power of Boycott

Currently, the BDS chapter in Kuwait is to looking into reports regarding various Israeli products making their way into the country, particularly the recent Israeli bell pepper incident.

When it was discovered, the volunteers of the BDS chapter contacted the retailer to find out how this product, with its label clearly stating its Israeli origins, ended up on the shelves.

According to the volunteers, the retailer claimed that it was merely a mistake and that the illicit product was removed. Despite these assurances, the volunteers are concerned that the retailer simply changed the packaging and kept the product, although they do not have any conclusive proof.

At the same time, BDS members began researching which governing authority is responsible for ensuring the boycott against Israel. With some effort they discovered the Customs Office for Boycotting Israeli Goods.

When the volunteers spoke with employees from the office, they assured them that only few products were smuggled in and that they were serious about maintaining the boycott. According to Ariqy, the office was even willing to create a hot-line with the organization in order to coordinate efforts. It was these officials’ first meeting with members of the public in over ten years.

For Ariqy and other volunteers, the main goal currently is to bring back the secondary sanctions and boycott laws, particularly in regards to companies like Veolia Transport and Alstom, who the authorities do not blacklist despite their work within Israeli settlements across the occupied territories. The Kuwait BDS also aims to modernize the laws regarding boycotting Israel in Kuwait.

“The problem with the Office of Boycotting Israel is that it is tied in with the decrees and policies of the Arab League, and the law in regards to boycotting Israel was made in 1964. It still has not been modified or developed further to meet the current challenges,” she said.

Ultimately, Ariqy is optimistic about the future and the growth of the BDS movement, and other similar non-violent campaigns that could play a dramatic role in changing the region.

“I’m optimistic because the movement is still young, and we in the Arab region may still not feel the major changes because the movement isn’t as well developed here. But changes do happen. The people in general are not aware of the importance and influence they wield. An Arab person may still feel helpless or feel that such actions are futile, but I think this viewpoint is changing.”

The Mercurial Kuwaiti-Palestinian History

Kuwait’s boycott system, with its virtues and vices, arises from its ever-changing foreign policy and its historical relations with Palestinians.

Toufic Haddad, writing for the Palestine Chronicle, noted that the history of Palestinian-Kuwaiti relations, which is deep, complex, and intersects much of the pivotal points of the Palestinian experience, is one of the most under-studied topics in contemporary Arab history.

After the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing by Zionist forces, a large number of Palestinians found themselves, at some point, living or working in Kuwait, including iconic figures such as Yasser Arafat and Naji al-Ali.

In reflection, Kuwaiti society and policy from 1948 to 1990 was much more pan-Arab and pro-Palestinian than other Gulf monarchies, although the Kuwaiti authorities maintained a tight grip on Palestinian activities.

During the four-year reign of Sheikh Abdullah al-Salam al-Sabah, the first emir of Kuwait, an emiri decree established Law 21 of 1964 that outlined how Israel was to be boycotted. It was part of a collective Arab League effort to sanction Israel and its allies.

All forms of trade, commercial and financial transactions with Israel, and ownership of Israeli goods and goods that include Israeli components, were forbidden. This included countries and companies that were doing business with Israel or were aiding the Zionist state in any form.

Punishment for violating this boycott resulted in a sentence of three to ten years hard labor and a fine. Subsequently, the Office for Boycotting Israeli Goods within the Customs Department was established to oversee this law.

The Arab collective boycott effort faced its first major blow in 1978 when Egypt signed a peace deal with Israel. But it was during the post-Oslo period when much of the general Arab boycott system significantly deteriorated.

For Kuwait in particular, the 1990 Iraqi invasion was a defining factor. Yasser Arafat’s apparent support of Saddam Hussein was grossly detrimental for Palestinians living in Kuwait. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were deported by Kuwaiti authorities, regardless of whether they opposed the invasion and occupation.

In August 1991, Kuwait announced an ease of its boycott of non-Israeli companies, particularly British and French, which were actively doing business with Israel under the justification of rapid postwar reconstruction. Two years later, the secondary Kuwaiti boycott on all non-Israeli companies working with Israel was lifted. In addition, aid to the Palestine Liberation Organization was drastically cut.

Relations only began to soften because of the Second Intifada in 2000. With each intensifying Israeli aggression against the Palestinians over the years, Kuwaiti political and social sentiments gradually swayed back and became much more supportive.

Original Link: http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/boycotting-israel-kuwait-long-way-back

As organisations that work with and represent those most effected by the actions of agricultural export companies, we wish to express our firm belief that ending trade with agricultural export companies that participate in and profit from Israel’s protracted occupation and violations of international law is a principled and essential step consistent with the values and principles of the Co-operative movement and in support of international law and universal human rights.

Agricultural export companies, especially Israeli agricultural export companies, are at the heart of Israel’s system of domination over the Palestinian people. They are an integral component of the on-going process of colonisation and environmental destruction of Palestinian land, the destruction of Palestinian agriculture, the theft of water, and the abuse of Palestinian workers’ rights. For decades, Israeli agricultural companies have exploited land that was illegally expropriated from Palestinians and water that rightly belongs to Palestinians.

Policies that exclude the sale of produce grown or packaged in illegal settlements should be welcomed but are insufficient. Agricultural export companies routinely mislabel their produce and are known to market settlement produce as originating from inside Israel. More importantly, agricultural companies as a whole are accountable for their conduct, and any trade with companies that export — even if partially — from settlements or participate in other Israeli violations of international law only serves to encourage further Israeli violations of international law and is inherently unethical. It is fantastic that the Co-Operative supermarket has become the first major supermarket in Europe to introduce measures to end trade with all companies that operate in or export from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. We look forward to working with the Co-Operative to provide it with any information that can assist with the implementation of its policy.

We call upon all major supermarket chains to implement a similar ban on trade with all companies that export from illegal Israeli settlements as a minimal form of ending complicity in Israel’s occupation and apartheid as well as supporting Palestinian farmers and civil society at large. Following on from the European wide campaign against Agrexco, which we wholeheartedly supported and was a major factor behind the company’s collapse, action must be taken to hold to account those companies seeking to replace it. We also call on all people of conscience to boycott all Israeli products, including agricultural produce.[2]

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlements, military zones and Israel’s illegal wall have resulted in the confiscation of and restriction of Palestinian access to the most fertile land and important water resources. According to recent research published by the United Nations, 43% of the West Bank is now off-limits to Palestinians.[3] Amnesty International has accused Israel of depriving Palestinians of their water rights in certain areas of the occupied territory “as a means of expulsion.”[4] Israeli domination of the water supply ensures that companies operating in illegal Israeli agricultural settlements in occupied Palestinian territory can grow water-intensive products for export to Europe, while Palestinian farmers are increasingly forced to resort to subsistence livestock farming as a result of an acute lack of water.[5] Palestinian trucks shipping Palestinian produce are constantly subjected to long hours of “security” checks and other bureaucratic measures to obstruct their timely access to markets, while Israeli produce is allowed to pass freely.

Israel’s medieval siege has all but destroyed the agricultural sector in Gaza. As of June 2009, a total of 46% of agricultural land in the Gaza Strip was assessed to be inaccessible or out of production owing to Israel’s destruction of these fertile lands during its war of aggression in 2008-09.[6] Restriction on the movement of essential goods has severely hampered the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to rebuild the infrastructure sector, and a 2010 study revealed 60% of households to be food insecure.[7]

The destruction of Palestinian livelihoods and the denial of supply of essential goods to Gazan farmers are not a side effect, but rather a tool consciously used by Israeli policy makers. In fact, the siege of Gaza is “a central pillar” of Israeli policy.[8] Dov Weissglass, top political advisor to former Israeli prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, stated that “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger”.[9]

Agricultural export companies profit from and directly participate in these Israeli violations of international law. Mehadrin, Israel’s largest agricultural export company, exports produce grown or packed in Israel’s illegal settlements, collaborates with state water company Mekorot in the illegal appropriation of Palestinian water and abuses the rights of Palestinian workers in its packing houses based in illegal Israeli settlements, employing them on far below minimum wage and without contracts or health insurance.[10] Other  agricultural companies known to trade with European supermarkets including AdaFresh, Arava Export Growers, Edom UK and Jordan Valley Herbs, also routinely export produce from illegal Israeli settlements.[11]

For these reasons, we applaud the principled stance taken by the Co-Operative supermarket. We also congratulate Co-Operative members, the Boycott Israel Network and all of the other organisations that worked tirelessly to move motions and facilitate a debate within the UK Co-Operative movement about trade links with Israel. Your dedicated campaigning is a fine example of the BDS movement in action.

Signed by:
Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)
General Union of Palestinian Peasants and Co-op Groups
Union of Palestinian Farmers (PFU)
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall)
Palestinian Agricultural Engineers Association
Union of Agricultural Work Committees

[1] http://www.boycottisraelnetwork.org/?p=1031
[2] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/palestinian-civil-society-welcomes-agrexco-liquidation-calls-for-celebration-of-this-bds-victory-8096
[3]http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_settlements_FactSheet_January_2012_english.pdf
[4]http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/028/2009/en/634f6762-d603-4efb-98ba-42a02acd3f46/mde150282009en.pdf
[5] http://www.blueplanetproject.net/documents/RTW/RTW-Palestine-1.pdf
http://stopthewall.org/2011/11/13/al-hadidiye-be-demolished-once-again-halt-new-wave-ethnic-cleansing
[6] http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MDCS-85SHU3?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=pse
[7] http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=286948
[8] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8654337.stm
[9] http://electronicintifada.net/content/starving-gaza/7342
[10] http://corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3625
http://www.whoprofits.org/company/mehadrin-group
http://www.blueplanetproject.net/documents/RTW/RTW-Palestine-1.pdf
[11] http://www.whoprofits.org/s?vid_3=1832

Anyone who supports Palestinian self-determination while calling only for ending the forty-five-year-old Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is only upholding most of the rights of just 38 percent of Palestinians while expecting the rest to accept injustice as fate. According to 2011 statistics, of 11.2 million Palestinians, 50 percent live in exile, many denied their UN-stipulated right to return to their homes of origin, and 12 percent are Palestinian citizens of Israel who live under a system of “institutional, legal and societal discrimination,” according to the US State Department. More than two thirds of Palestinians are refugees or internally displaced persons.

Equal rights for Palestinians means, at minimum, ending Israel’s 1967 occupation and colonization, ending Israel’s system of racial discrimination and respecting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands from which they were ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba. The 2005 Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Palestinians because it upholds all three. By appealing to people of conscience around the world to help end Israel’s three-tiered system of oppression, the BDS movement is not asking for anything heroic. It is merely asking people to desist from complicity in oppression.

Moreover, given the billions of dollars lavished by the United States on Israel annually, American taxpayers are subsidizing Israel’s violations of international law at a time when American social programs are undergoing severe cuts. Striving to end US complicity in the occupation is good for the Palestinians and for the 99 percent struggling for social justice and against perpetual war.

Building on its global ascendance, the BDS movement—led by the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society, the BDS National Committee (BNC)—is spreading across the United States, especially on campuses and among churches, scoring significant victories such as at the Olympia Food Co-op. Globally, trade union federations with millions of members have endorsed BDS. Veolia and Alstom, two corporations complicit in Israel’s occupation, have lost contracts worth billions of dollars. Deutsche Bahn, a German government-controlled rail company, pulled out of an Israeli project encroaching on occupied Palestinian land. The University of Johannesburg severed links with Ben Gurion University over human rights violations. World renowned artists—including, most recently, Cat Power and Cassandra Wilson—have canceled performances in Israel, heeding the cultural boycott and transforming Tel Aviv into the new Sun City.

BDS advocates equal rights for all and opposes all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. This universalist commitment has won hearts and minds globally, triggering panic and over-the-top bullying attempts to crush BDS in the United States, as witnessed with the national BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania and the Park Slope Co-op ballot on boycotting Israeli goods, where almost 40 percent voted for BDS. Perhaps provoked by the mainstreaming of BDS, President Obama attacked it for the first time in his recent AIPAC address, joining numerous US politicians whose vehement vilification of BDS puts them on a moral plane with those white Americans who opposed the Montgomery bus boycott and/or the boycott of apartheid South Africa.

With impressive successes in the economic and cultural fields, and with the increasing impact of its Israeli supporters, BDS is viewed by Israel’s establishment as a “strategic threat” to its system of oppression—namely occupation, colonialism and apartheid. This explains the Knesset’s passage of a draconian anti-boycott law last year that drops the last mask of Israel’s supposed democracy. But multimillion-dollar campaigns by Israel’s foreign ministry to counter BDS by “re-branding” through art, science and cynically using LGBT rights to “pinkwash” Israel’s denial of basic Palestinian rights have largely failed.

Among international supporters of BDS, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is among the most eloquent in arguing that Israel practices apartheid. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine in its recent Cape Town session determined that Israel is practicing apartheid against the entire Palestinian people. Similarly, South African Christian leaders have condemned Israel’s apartheid as “even worse than South African apartheid.” And the publisher of Haaretz, an influential Israeli daily, recently described a fanatic Israeli ideology of “territorial seizure and apartheid.”

With its continued siege of Gaza; its untamed construction of illegal colonies and the wall in the occupied West Bank; its “strategy of Judaization” in Jerusalem, the Galilee, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev); its adoption of new racist laws and its denial of refugees’ rights, Israel has embarked on a more belligerent phase in its attempt to extinguish the question of Palestine through literally “disappearing” the Palestinians, as Said would say.

Israel and its well-oiled lobby groups, who Thomas Friedman charges with buying allegiance in Congress, have been trying to delegitimize the Palestinian quest for equal rights by portraying the nonviolent BDS call’s emphasis on equal rights and the right of return as aiming to “destroy Israel.” If equality and justice would destroy Israel, what does that say about Israel? Did equality and justice destroy South Africa? Did they destroy Alabama? Justice and equality only destroy their negation, injustice and inequality. The BDS movement’s effective challenge to Israeli apartheid and colonial rule petrifies Israel and its lobbies.

Desperate to “save Israel,” essentially as an apartheid state, and motivated by genuine fear of the demise of Zionism, “liberal” Zionists are under exceptional duress given the fast spread of BDS. Cognizant of its appeal to an increasing number of younger Jewish activists, some are muddying the waters by suggesting a Zionist-friendly boycott to undermine the movement. But BDS is an ethically consistent, rights-based movement that cannot coexist with racism of any type, including Zionism. A “Zionist BDS” is as logical as a “racist equality”!

BDS addresses comprehensive Palestinian rights, not simply ending the Israeli occupation of some densely populated Palestinian territory in order to save Israel as a “purer” apartheid. Even those who seek ending the occupation only, disregarding the basic rights of most Palestinians, struggle to explain their opposition to a full boycott of Israel, the occupying power, which under international law bears full responsibility for the occupation and its manifestations. The BDS movement calls for boycotting Israel just as South Africa was the target of boycotts due to its apartheid regime, China due to its occupation of Tibet and Sudan due to its crimes in Darfur.

Still, BDS is not a dogmatic or centralized movement—it is all about context sensitivity and creativity. BDS supporters in any particular context decide what to target and how to mobilize and organize their local campaigns. So long as they uphold the basic rights of all Palestinians, international partners may decide to selectively target companies implicated in Israel’s occupation or colonies only out of pragmatic considerations rather than approval of Israel’s other injustices.

A movement that dwells in citizens’ consciences, that is rooted in an oppressed people’s heritage of struggle for justice, and that is inspired by the rich and diverse legacies of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. cannot be defeated or co-opted.

Our South Africa moment has arrived.

Original Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/167708/opinionnation-forum-boycott-divestment-sanctions-bds

“Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory.” –Gandhi

Occupied Palestine, 3 May 2012 – The General Conference of the United Methodist Church decided yesterday to call for an explicit boycott of all Israeli companies “operating in the occupied Palestinian territories,” knowing that this constitutes the absolute majority of Israeli corporations. This and the overwhelming support for the “Kairos Palestine” document and its call “for an end to military occupation and human rights violations through nonviolent actions,” which include boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), will pave the way forward for further action by the Church to hold Israel accountable for its colonial and apartheid regime.

Although the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) fell short of voting for divestment from three U.S. corporations that are actively complicit in Israel’s protracted occupation and serious violations of international law, the inspiring awareness raising and advocacy campaign waged by human rights activists within the Church and in many communities outside it has succeeded in elevating Israel divestment and the struggle for Palestinian rights to mainstream prominence. Notwithstanding this decision, four annual (regional) conferences within the UMC have already adopted Israel divestment resolutions.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broadest coalition of Palestinian political parties, trade unions, NGOs and networks, whose BDS Call is supported by Palestinian church groups from all major Christian denominations, salutes all the people of conscience, especially within the UMC, who relentlessly, meticulously and with immense selflessness labored to convince the Church to align its investment policy with its ethical principles that reject injustice and oppression. Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett Packard should not take too much comfort in this temporary setback; while they are off the hook for now, many more people today know exactly what these companies are doing in violation of international law and will soon hold them accountable.

As a result of repeated disinformation and fear mongering by some Church officials responsible for its investment branch, a majority of UMC delegates still feel that divesting from companies profiting from human rights violations is a considerable and unnecessary sacrifice. The widely expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, and with Palestinian Christians in particular, who overwhelmingly called on the Church to divest, was thus not translated into action that heeds the moral obligation to do no harm. By continuing to invest in companies that profit from the Israeli occupation and human rights violations, and despite all intentions, the UMC is still doing harm to the Palestinian people through its financial complicity in maintaining the occupation.

Efforts by BDS activists from around the world are sending a strong message to corporations that their collusion in Israel’s unlawful occupation and serious violations of international law is under scrutiny and will not be tolerated. A recent research report exposed Hewlett Packard’s role in sustaining the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people, with its supply of biometric monitoring systems to Israeli military checkpoints inside the occupied West Bank and technological solutions to Israel’s army and illegal colonial settlements, contributing to the caging of Palestinians in fragmented ghettos[1]. Motorola provides surveillance systems for Israeli settlements, military bases and the apartheid wall, and communications equipment to the Israeli occupation army.[2]

The General Conference, taking place this year in Tampa, FL, meets every four years and is the only entity that speaks for The United Methodist Church.[3] The process and international debates leading to the vote on this divestment resolution mark a milestone in the persistent efforts of Christians around the world and Methodists in particular to bring concrete meaning to a long-standing ethical Church position in support of ending Israel’s occupation and human rights violations. The setback notwithstanding, this debate over how best to hold Israel accountable for human rights violations is largely viewed as ushering in a new phase in faith groups’ activism for Palestinian rights reminiscent of similar measures that eventually contributed to dismantling South African apartheid.

The impressive mobilization in support of this divestment resolution united people from diverse backgrounds, including scores of Jewish human rights activists, mostly associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, who proudly spoke out for an end to church material support to Israel’s occupation.[4] It constitutes a distinguished contribution to the Palestinian people’s struggle to achieve its full set of human rights, which includes also full equality for Palestinians citizens of Israel, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees as guaranteed by international law. UMC activists, who led this effort with diligence and utmost attention to accuracy, moral consistency and effective advocacy, deserve warm praise and gratitude from all of us struggling for a just peace in Palestine and the region. The supportive role of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in this mobilization must also be acknowledged and commended. While the profound obligation to “do no harm” was not honored by many in the General Conference, it has become a rallying cry for human rights activists everywhere, including within the Church. This setback notwithstanding, we are confident that campaigns of misinformation and vilification by well-oiled pro-Israel lobbies and putting profit ahead of principle by some will not for long drown the voices of the many Methodists who stand, in word and in deed, behind Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. 

In 2009, prominent Palestinian Christians issued the “Kairos Palestine” document[5], a historic theological manifesto that seeks inspiration from a similar document issued in 1985 by South African theologians, detailing their vision for justice and the obligation to resist injustice. Kairos Palestine explicitly advocates BDS against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.[6] The following year, United Methodist clergy and laity from the US responded to the “Kairos Palestine” document with grassroots educational and research efforts to understand the full extent of the impact of UMC investments that directly result in the oppression of Palestinians. These efforts culminated in the resolution[7] presented at this year’s General Conference and voted upon by the 988 delegates present from around the world.

A recent report by the Presbyterian Church (USA), whose divestment resolution will come to a vote at the general assembly scheduled for July, shows that years of engagement — 8 years, to be exact — with Caterpillar, which supplies Israel with bulldozers used to wantonly destroy Palestinian property and build apartheid infrastructure, have failed to convince the company to change its behavior thus making divestment an imperative.[8] Targeted divestment is, therefore, the minimum required to express effective solidarity with Palestinians languishing under and resisting Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid.

The BDS movement has opened space for much needed debate in the U.S. public sphere about Israel’s three-tiered system of oppression against Palestinians and is now becoming a household name. The road to ultimate victory over oppression, as Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. teach us, is never straight or paved with flowers; every turn and decline are opportunities to learn how to persevere and to rise stronger against the challenges ahead.

We salute the genuine moral voices in the United Methodist Church for their sincere efforts to put truth to action, to bring justice and freedom for all in the land that is the birthplace of Christianity.   

Veolia Transport Nederland is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French parent company, Veolia Environment, which means that the latter exercises full control over the company tendering. Taking into consideration that the Veolia Group presents itself internationally as a company that operates as a single corporate entity, thus including all subsidiaries, the Veolia Group as a whole will benefit from profits generated through the exploitation of the public transport concession for The Hague city district, should Veolia Transport Nederland be awarded the contract.

Participation of a company with a disputed reputation and involvement in illegal activities in the OPT in The Hague’s public transport tender is particularly problematic, due to the city’s reputation as the “International City of Peace and Justice.” Commenting on the issue, Al-Haq Director Shawan Jabarin stated: “How can the city of The Hague consider allowing its citizens and employees of international institutions, courts and tribunals tasked with contributing towards peace and justice world wide, to make use of a public transportation service which is operated by a company involved in violations of international law?”

In July 2011, the Stadsregio Arnhem Nijmegen, a Dutch local authority, decided to award a one billion Euro public transport concession to Hermes, the Dutch subsidiary of French multinational company VeoliaTransdev. In response to the local authority’s decision, Al-Haq instructed Van den Biesen Boesveld advocates to submit a formal objection against the decision of Stadsregio Arnhem Nijmegen.

Considering Veolia’s involvement in violations of international humanitarian law, Al-Haq calls on the Stadsgewest Haaglanden to promptly reconsider its association with the Veolia Group’s businesses and to immediately exclude Veolia Transport Nederland from the public transport tender. It is highly undesirable for the “International City of Peace and Justice” to enter into a contract with one of the subsidiaries of the Veolia Group, as its aspirations cannot be reconciled with the violations of international humanitarian law to which the Veolia Group is associated.

Original Link: http://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/targets/accountability/72-hermesveolia/567-veolia-subsidiary-applies-for-public-tender-in-city-of-peace-and-justice

I have reached this conclusion slowly and painfully. I am aware that many of our Jewish brothers and sisters who were so instrumental in the fight against South African apartheid are not yet ready to reckon with the apartheid nature of Israel and its current government. And I am enormously concerned that raising this issue will cause heartache to some in the Jewish community with whom I have worked closely and successfully for decades. But I cannot ignore the Palestinian suffering I have witnessed, nor the voices of those courageous Jews troubled by Israel’s discriminatory course.

Within the past few days, some 1,200 American rabbis signed a letter — timed to coincide with resolutions considered by the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) — urging Christians not “to selectively divest from certain companies whose products are used by Israel.” They argue that a “one-sided approach” on divestment resolutions, even the selective divestment from companies profiting from the occupation proposed by the Methodists and Presbyterians, “damages the relationship between Jews and Christians that has been nurtured for decades.”

While they are no doubt well-meaning, I believe that the rabbis and other opponents of divestment are sadly misguided. My voice will always be raised in support of Christian-Jewish ties and against the anti-Semitism that all sensible people fear and detest. But this cannot be an excuse for doing nothing and for standing aside as successive Israeli governments colonize the West Bank and advance racist laws.

I recall well the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he confesses to his “Christian and Jewish brothers” that he has been “gravely disappointed with the white moderate … who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom. …”

King’s words describe almost precisely the shortcomings of the 1,200 rabbis who are not joining the brave Palestinians, Jews and internationals in isolated West Bank communities to protest nonviolently against Israel’s theft of Palestinian land to build illegal, Jewish-only settlements and the separation wall. We cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand as relentless settlement activity forecloses on the possibility of the two-state solution.

If we do not achieve two states in the near future, then the day will certainly arrive when Palestinians move away from seeking a separate state of their own and insist on the right to vote for the government that controls their lives, the Israeli government, in a single, democratic state. Israel finds this option unacceptable and yet is seemingly doing everything in its power to see that it happens.

Many black South Africans have traveled to the occupied West Bank and have been appalled by Israeli roads built for Jewish settlers that West Bank Palestinians are denied access to, and by Jewish-only colonies built on Palestinian land in violation of international law.

Black South Africans and others around the world have seen the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which “describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.” This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable. And we are in desperate need of more rabbis joining the brave rabbis of Jewish Voice for Peace in speaking forthrightly about the corrupting decadeslong Israeli domination over Palestinians.

These are among the hardest words I have ever written. But they are vitally important. Not only is Israel harming Palestinians, but it is harming itself. The 1,200 rabbis may not like what I have to say, but it is long past time for them to remove the blinders from their eyes and grapple with the reality that Israel becoming an apartheid state or like South Africa in its denial of equal rights is not a future danger, as three former Israeli prime ministers — Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and David Ben Gurion — have warned, but a present-day reality. This harsh reality endured by millions of Palestinians requires people and organizations of conscience to divest from those companies — in this instance, from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard — profiting from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.

Such action made an enormous difference in apartheid South Africa. It can make an enormous difference in creating a future of justice and equality for Palestinians and Jews in the Holy Land.

Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, is archbishop-emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa.

Original Link: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/justice-requires-action-to-stop-subjugation-of-palestinians/1227722