Malmo, May 15, 2011 Rania Masri, ://greenresistance.wordpress.com Malmo, May 15, 2011 Rania Masri, ://greenresistance.wordpress.com.

Malmo, May 15, 2011Rania Masri, http://greenresistance.wordpress.com

Malmo, May 15, 2011Rania Masri, http://greenresistance.wordpress.com

The Case for Boycott, Divestment, and

Sanctions(BDS) against the apartheid state of Israel

The Case for Boycott, Divestment, and

Sanctions(BDS) against the apartheid state of Israel

What is Apartheid?

“…similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa” which have “the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them, in particular by means such as segregation, expropriation of land, and denial of the right to leave and return to their country, the right to a nationality and the right to freedom of movement and residence” (Article II, International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, UN General Assembly Resolution 3068, 30 Nov 1973).

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The persistent denial of the UN-sanctioned rights of the Palestinian refugees, paramount among which is their right to reparations and to return to their homes of origin, in accordance with UNGA Res. 194.

The system of racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel; and

The prolonged occupation and colonization of Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and other Arab territories

Is Israel an Apartheid State -- throughout the land of Palestine? Yes.

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The persistent denial of the UN-sanctioned rights of the Palestinian refugees, paramount among which is their right to reparations and to return to their homes of origin, in accordance with UNGA Res. 194. the ongoing ethnic cleansing

The system of racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel; and

The prolonged occupation and colonization of Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and other Arab territories

Is Israel an Apartheid State -- throughout the land of Palestine? Yes.

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Ongoing nakba: demolition of Al-Araqib

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Ongoing nakba: demolition of Al-Araqib

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Ongoing nakba – home demolitions in Lydd

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Ongoing nakba - Silwan

Palestinian children observe a protest of an archaeological convention organized by settlers in Silwan, September 2010.(Oren Ziv/ ActiveStills)

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The persistent denial of the UN-sanctioned rights of the Palestinian refugees, paramount among which is their right to reparations and to return to their homes of origin, in accordance with UNGA Res. 194.

The system of racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel; and

The prolonged occupation and colonization of Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and other Arab territories

Israel is an Apartheid State -- throughout the land of Palestine

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“Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, not a state of all its citizens.” -- MK David Roten

“...the Judaization project is driven by the Zionist premise that Israel is a territory and a state that ‘belongs’ to, and only to, the Jewish people.” -- Dr. Haim Yacobi, Ben Gurion University.

The persistent denial of the UN-sanctioned rights of the Palestinian refugees, paramount among which is their right to reparations and to return to their homes of origin, in accordance with UNGA Res. 194.

The system of racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel; and

The prolonged occupation and colonization of Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and other Arab territories

Israel is an Apartheid State -- throughout the land of Palestine

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Since ‘Oslo Accords’

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and 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. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace. (2005)

www.bdsmovement.net

Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law

and Universal Principles of Human Rights.

These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Global Anti-Apartheid Movement

“… what prevented South Africa’s white supremacist government from escalating their own violence to Israeli levels of cruelty and audacity was not that they had greater scruples than the Zionist regime. It was recognition that they alone could not stand against a global anti-apartheid movement that was in solidarity with the internal resistance.” – Ali Abunimah, 2009

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Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS)

Boycott: Form of pressure through non-cooperation. Consumer actions include product (economic boycott), academic, cultural, and sports boycott.

Divestment: The selling of stocks or bonds from a company profiting from unjust practices. This is done by institutional investors like churches and universities.

Sanctions: Economic and diplomatic restrictions imposed by governments against other governments.

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Askalan, a Palestinian town, 1975

A Coca-Cola factoryIn 2003, Coca-Cola paid $8.4 million to the Israel Land Administration for land on which to build a Coca-Cola factory in Askalan.

“The cultural image in Israel feeds the political decision in the West to support unconditionally the Israeli destruction of Palestine and the Palestinians.”

- Ilan Pappe

“The abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besiged Palestinians in

Gaza, and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, coupled with its denial of the

rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair minded people

around the world support the Palestinians in the civil, nonviolent resistance.” - Roger

Waters (Pink Floyd), 2010

Roxette will be performing in Tel Aviv on October 22, 2011

What is academic freedom?

Is the freedom to produce and exchange knowledge and ideas sacrosanct regardless of prevailing conditions?

Does academic freedom include the

freedom to incite hatred?

Are Israeli academic institutions innocent?

“I will be the first to admit that Israeli

academic institutions are part and parcel of the oppressive Israeli

state that has...committed grave

crimes against the Palestinian people.”

-Baruch Kimmerling

What is the responsibility of academia?

“The traditional spirit of the academia ... is

that intellectual responsibility includes the

safeguarding of moral principles.”

-Tanya Reinhart

Jewish National Fund: a ‘charity’ involved in ethnic cleansing

“The JNF, as the owner of the JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state.”

- Response by the JNF to a petition filed with the Supreme Court of Israel (December 2004)

Canada Park

Established in 1973 with funds from JNF-Canada,

Canada Park is planted on the ruins of 3 ethnically

cleansed Palestinian villages, Imwas, Yalu and

Beit Nuba.

Imwas, 1958

www.palestineremembered.com

Imwas, during the destruction, 1967

www.palestineremembered.com

Imwas, 1968

www.palestineremembered.com

Imwas, 1988

www.palestineremembered.com

Stop the JNF Campaign

www.stopthejnf.org – [email protected]

(some) Union Supporters of BDS

Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario’s University Workers Coordinating Committee

Scottish Trade Union Congress

Irish Congress of Trade Unions

An Australian dock workers union

British fire fighter union (Fire Brigades Union)

University and College Union (representing 120,000 teaching and related staff in colleges and universities in the UK)

Unite: Britain’s largest trade union for academics and academic-related staff in higher education

Supporting the complete boycott:

Launched a week long boycott of Israeli ships and goods in May 2010

Swedish dockworkers

Supporters of BDS from ‘within’

“We, as Israeli citizens, raise our voices to call on EU leaders: use sanctions against Israel's brutal policies and join the active protests of Bolivia and Venezuela. We appeal to the citizens of Europe: please attend to the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation's call, supported by more than 540 Israeli citizens (www.freegaza.org/en/home/): boycott Israeli goods and Israeli institutions; follow resolutions such as those made by the cities of Athens, Birmingham and Cambridge (US). This is the only road left. Help us all, please!” – [January 17 2009]

Legitimacy of the illegitimate: threatened

“The Delegitimization Network tarnishes Israel’s reputation, constrains its military capabilities and advances the One-State Solution ”

- The Reut Institute’s ‘THe Deligitimization Challenge.’ Feb. 2010.

“The Delegitimization Network tarnishes Israel’s reputation, constrains its military capabilities and advances the One-State Solution ”

- The Reut Institute’s ‘THe Deligitimization Challenge.’ Feb. 2010.

"There are millions of Indians who love us, a billion Chinese who love us, and millions of evangelicals, who love us. We have a problem with Sweden, but we're working on it.”

- Shimon Peres, Feb. 20, 2010. (J. Post)

The Public Knesset Lobby to Cope with the Delegitimization of Israel: to fight “claims for

the Palestinian Right of Return, apartheid, the prosecution of Israeli military officers in Israel

and abroad, not serving in the Israel army, calling for refusal to serve in the military, the Goldstone

Report and calls for economic, academic, cultural and political boycott of Israel.”

- February 2011

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentless - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling -- their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” - Arundhati Roy