Join the BDS movement!

Israel’s live-streamed genocide, armed, funded and enabled by the US and colonial European powers, is unprecedented in history. It has banned the entry of life-sustaining food, water, fuel and medical supplies to 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, causing starvation and the spread of diseases. In parallel, it has indiscriminately bombed Gaza,  deliberately destroying hospitals, universities, schools, UN shelters, bakeries, solar panels, residential neighborhoods, telecommunications facilities, as well as water and sewage treatment infrastructure. 

In our thousands, in our millions, Palestinians and people of conscience around the world have taken to the streets for some of the largest protests the world has seen in the last decades. We are grateful to each one of you who, through your voices and creative actions, refused to only witness oppression but decided to build up unprecedented grassroots power to end the Israel-US genocidal war against our people in Gaza. 

2023 has been a heavy year for all of us, but we are asking you to continue organizing for our collective hope for freedom and justice, and hold those responsible and complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza accountable. 

ACT NOW to end Israel’s genocide and ensure 2024 will be the year our people power can achieve justice and dismantle settler-colonial apartheid:

Let us continue to build our collective power and escalate impactful BDS campaigns like never before to end complicity and business-as-usual with Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime in every field: academic, cultural, sports, economic, military, financial, etc. Apartheid Israel deserves the apartheid South Africa treatment: massive boycotts, divestment and unprecedented lawful sanctions, starting with a comprehensive military embargo. 

Based on the depraved, dehumanizing statements and exposed plans of its self-proclaimed fascist leaders, Israel is “rolling out” a “second Nakba,” ethnically cleansing Indigenous Palestinians en masse, and as admitted by Israeli military officials, “everything is intentional.” 

On December 29, 2023, South Africa petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in its war on Gaza. The legal action at the top world court aims to protect Palestinian rights from “further, severe and irreparable harm” and provides a glimpse of hope. Dozens of UN experts had already warned of a “genocide in the making,” as have hundreds of international law scholars, including genocide experts, and a senior UN human rights official. Palestinians have warmly welcomed this step calling on states around the world to support it. 

The Palestinian leadership of the global BDS movement calls on all people of conscience worldwide to amplify the Palestinian people’s priority demands and help us build the necessary people’s power towards:

• A permanent ceasefire and lifting of the siege to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

• Opposition to Israel’s plan to forcibly displace Palestinians, whether within or outside the Gaza Strip. 

• Lawful sanctions on Israel, including a comprehensive #MilitaryEmbargo.

• Substantial pressure on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to end its complicity of silence, dismiss its current genocide-enabling Prosecutor, and immediately act to stop the unfolding genocide, starting with prosecuting apartheid Israel’s war criminals.

• All states parties of the Genocide Convention to fully support South Africa’s genocide proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to prevent Israel’s systematic erasure of the Palestinian people. 

Join BDS groups and partners of the BDS movement in your countries to stop Israel’s #GazaGenocide:

1. Act against the companies profiting from Israel’s genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people and channel your rage, frustration and grief into escalating pressure against strategic BDS targets. 

2. Wherever possible, join demonstrations in your country calling for: Ceasefire NOW! Lift the Siege NOW! #MilitaryEmbargo and Pressure ICC to end its complicity starting with issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli genocide criminals and their enablers.

3. Start organizing for Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) 2024. During the month of March, we shall March for Palestine: Stop the Genocide, End Apartheid. IAW2024 will be the most important since IAW began 20 years ago! More details coming soon.  

4. Organize or join groups organizing peaceful disruptions, sit-ins, occupations targeting complicit governments’ offices, MPs, complicit public and private institutions, or complicit companies targeted by BDS campaigns. 

5. Join groups, particularly workers’ unions, disrupting the transport of weapons, or weapon parts, to Israel, including in transit states. 

6. Raise awareness around you about Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid and support your community/center/workplace/trade union/organization to declare themselves an Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ). A toolkit and a checklist are available. 

7. If not done yet, convince your city council/trade unions/cultural and academic institutions to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and lifting the siege and to cut existing complicit ties with apartheid Israel! 

Channel your rage, frustration, and grief into effective, strategic BDS action and pressure to stop the genocide and dismantle Israel’s regime of settler-colonial apartheid, the root cause of this oppression and unspeakable violence.