March 30th: Global Day of Solidarity with Palestine—A New Stage in the BDS Campaign
Reageer (0)JOIN THE GLOBAL BDS ACTION DAY, MARCH 30
Worldwide Activism, Palestine Assembly (WSF, Belem), BNC, February 14th, 2009
(This call was launched at the WSF 2009 in Belém.)
In December 2008, Israel decided to mark the 60thanniversary of its existence the same way it had established itself: perpetrating massacres against the Palestinian people. In 23 days, Israel killed more than 1,300 and injured over 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza. The irony of history is that Israel targeted those Palestinians ? and their descendants - whom it had expelled from their homes and pushed into refugee-hood in Gaza in 1948, whose land it has stolen, whom it has oppressed since 1967 by means of a brutal military occupation, and whom it had tried to starve into submission by means of a criminal blockade of food, fuel and electricity in the 18 months preceding the military assault. We cannot wait for Israel to zero in on its next objective. Palestine has today become the test of our indispensable morality and our common humanity.
We therefore call on all to unite our different capacities and struggles in a
Global Day of Action
in Solidarity with the Palestinian people and
for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel
on March 30th.
The mobilization coincides with the Palestinian Land Day, the annual commemoration of the 1976 Israeli massacre of Palestinians in the Galilee in struggle against massive land expropriation, and forms part of the Global Week of Action against the Crises and War from March 28 to April 4.
We urge the people and their organizations around the globe to mobilize in concrete and visible BDS actions to make this day a historic step in this new anti-apartheid movement and for the fulfilment of the rights and dignity of the people and the accountability of the powerful.
In our March 30thBDS actions, we will particularly focus on:
* Boycotts and divestment from Israeli corporations and international corporations that sustain Israeli apartheid and occupation.
* Legal action to end Israel?s impunity and prosecute its war criminals through national court cases and international tribunals.
* Cancelling and blocking free trade and other preferential agreements with Israel and imposing an arms embargo as the first steps towards fully fledged sanctions against Israel.
The time for the world to fully adopt and implement the Palestinian call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions is NOW. This campaign has to become an urgent part of every struggle for justice and humanity, by adopting widespread action against Israeli products, companies, academic and cultural institutions, sports groups, international corporations supporting Israeli policies of racism, ethnic cleansing and military occupation and pressuring governments for sanctions. It must be sustained until Israel provides free access to Gaza, dismantles the Apartheid Wall and ends its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands; recognizes the right of the Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respects, protects and promotes the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.
For more information see: www.bdsmovement.net
For information on how to join the action day and how to develop BDS action in your country, organization and network, please contact the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) at: info@bdsmovement.net.
source
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Written by Michael Warschawski | |
| Wednesday, 04 March 2009 | |
One of the many BDS Israel campaign posters.
March
30th was declared international mobilization day for the rights of
the Palestinian people at the World Social Forum, held last month in Brazil,
and the commitment of the global social movement to make it a demonstration of
strength is undeniable.
The
Gaza massacre has, once again, put Palestine at the heart of international
public awareness: from Africa to North America, from Europe to Indian
sub-continent, broad collectives are preparing mass mobilizations and lobbying
actions toward their governments. Solidarity actions and protests are indeed
important, but their efficiency will be tested by our joint ability to affect
the Israeli government and the Israeli public and to force them to change their
policies. This is why an action campaign is indispensable. Such a campaign
has already started, under the label of BDS—Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions,
and the March 30th international day of mobilization should serve as
a qualitative push to enlarge and strengthen our efforts. The BDS campaign has been inspired by the campaign of boycott against Apartheid South Africa in the 1970s, and we have to learn from that experience. One of the main lessons South Africa’s campaign can teach us is patience and determination.
It
took more than two decades before the campaign did bear fruits. It began with
individual acts of boycott, developed later into civil society mobilizations,
and only at a later stage was it followed by government sanctions. These
official political, financial and economical sanctions were the turning point,
and succeeded to split part of white South Africa from Apartheid, but it took
twenty years of local and international campaigning to reach this point. Twenty
years of diverse actions and a kind of division a labor: civil society
organizing the boycott, corporations and churches the divestment, and, later
on, the UN and governments gradually adopting a policy of sanctions.
We
are only at the beginning of the BDS campaign, but we can be proud of the results.
To name only a few: academic boycott and sanctions in Great Britain,
endorsement of the campaign by major unions in Canada, diplomatic steps by
Venezuela and Bolivia, and a mobilization of the civil society in a campaign of
boycott of Israeli goods in northern Europe countries. These sanctions are more
and more felt by growing parts of the Israeli public, which, like any other
people in the world, don’t like to be outcasts. To outcast Israel is indeed the name of the game, to make the Israeli public understand that its support for (or lack of substantial opposition to) the colonial occupation makes it impossible to be accepted in the community of decent nations. By its uncivilized conduct, in particular in the Gaza Strip, Israel has excluded itself from the civilized world. This is the message of the BDS campaign, and our role in Israel is to make it heard, loud and clear. |
source
