Naomi Klein on Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction
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- Written by Naomi Klein Naomi Klein
- Category: Boycott Divest Sanction Boycott Divest Sanction
- Created: 08 January 2009 08 January 2009
- Last Updated: 26 December 2010 26 December 2010
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It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions—BDS for short—was born.
Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop."
Call for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
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- Written by PACBI PACBI
- Category: Boycott Divest Sanction Boycott Divest Sanction
- Created: 25 November 2009 25 November 2009
- Last Updated: 26 December 2010 26 December 2010
- Hits: 10122 10122
Whereas Israel‘s colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, which is based on Zionist ideology, comprises the following:
- Denial of its responsibility for the Nakba -- in particular the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem -- and therefore refusal to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees and displaced stipulated in and protected by international law;
- Military occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza since 1967, in violation of international law and UN resolutions;
- The entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa;