The Palestinian-led BDS movement urgently calls on all supporters to organize, join and amplify peaceful actions to mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, on or around 15 May.
Today marks the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, the forced expulsion of approximately 750,000 Indigenous Palestinians from their homes in 1948. On top of the ruins of our homeland, the Zionist movement established Israel as a settler colony, which has adopted apartheid and military occupation to achieve its declared goal: maximum land, minimum Palestinians. Israel’s livestreamed genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza is the darkest chapter in this ongoing Nakba of oppression and ethnic cleansing. Cutting all links of state, corporate, and institutional complicity in its genocidal regime has become an irrefutable legal, not just moral, obligation.
Israel seeks to normalize and divert attention from its settler-colonial origins by overwhelming the world with tens of thousands of current crimes against Palestinians and the peoples of the region from Lebanon and Iran to Syria and Yemen. Perpetrating unspeakable depraved violence, it aims to colonize our minds not only with despair but also with amnesia. But Palestinians, like our ancient olive trees, are resilient and patient; we also have a fertile collective memory. Our refugees’ right to return home and receive reparations is our most fundamental goal. We struggle, after all, not just to end the genocide and the ongoing Nakba but also to dismantle their root cause: 78 years of settler-colonialism and apartheid.
Only through our principled and strategic popular struggle, supported by people power globally, can we end complicity and achieve liberation. Today’s struggle in Palestine, and in solidarity spaces all around the world, is a struggle for humanity and a global order based on justice, freedom, and equality for all. Palestine is at the center of the global wave of resisting the Israeli-US genocidal axis might-makes-right order.
We call on you to join BDS groups and solidarity partners in your countries to:
- Shut It Down – Peacefully disrupt the corporations and institutions complicit in Israel’s genocide. Organize strikes (when feasible), walkouts, and sit-ins. No business as usual under genocide.
- Expand Apartheid-Free Zones – Demand your university, workplace, union, or city cut ties with apartheid Israel and respect the BDS guidelines.
- Pressure Governments for Lawful Sanctions – Governments must fulfil their legal obligations, particularly following the ICJ rulings, by imposing targeted sanctions on Israel, including a comprehensive military and energy embargo.
- Build Broad Intersectional Coalitions - Intersectional anti-racist coalitions for justice are needed now more than ever to save humanity.
- Adopt Ethical Procurement and Investment Guidelines - Call on municipalities, councils, and other public bodies to ensure that public funds do not contract or invest in companies implicated in grave human rights abuses and violations of international law anywhere, including Palestine.
Channel your rage, frustration, and grief into effective, strategic BDS pressure to support our struggle to end Israel’s ongoing Nakba, genocide and settler-colonial apartheid.