10 sept 2015
Non-binding call to create an all encompassing policy for labeling settlement products drew criticism from Israel: We remember the last time Europeans marked Jewish goods.
The European parliament approved a decision calling for the labeling of settlement products on Thursday, with a vote of 525 for and 70 against. Only a small number of European states currently require the labeling of settlement products; however there is now a growing fear that the labeling will become a union-wide policy.
"The policy stinks of boycott," a foreign ministry spokesman said. One of the vote's articles includes a statement made by 16 European foreign ministers who backed the move in April.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response, "We remember what happened when Europeans marked Jewish goods. The EU decision is a distortion of justice and logic."
"The state of Israel views the vote with severity, especially the call for labeling products," the Foreign Ministry responded.
"The labeling of products is an act of discrimination which reeks of a boycott. We are talking about an attempt to force a political solution under the guise of a technical move," the statement continued.
"Europe is acting especially duplicitous in Israel's case, we have yet to see the same policies enacted against North Cyprus or Western Sahara," the ministry concluded.
Deputy Foreign Minister, MK Tzipi Hotovely said in response to the European parliamentary decision, "We must call the child by it's name – labeling products is a boycott. Israel will not allow any body to discriminate between products which are produced by Israeli citizens within Israel's territory."
"The attempts to force a one sided political solution, especially when the topic is product labeling, will lead to nowhere. Immediately following Rosh Hashana I plan to hold an urgent debate with the Europe section of the Ministry on the matter, and initiate a diplomatic campaign against the labeling initiative," she concluded. The European Union's Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini stated on Saturday that work on the union's settlement labeling policy is nearing completion.
As of now only a handful of states in the union instruct retail chains to label settlement products, including; Britain, Denmark, Belgium. As a result of the vote, the union is set to adopt a European settlement labeling policy. Luxemburg's Foreign Minister, Jean Asselborn said that the policy's publication is expected to occur by the end of the year.
The matter has been on the European Union's agenda for a number of years, but was never adopted as a binding decision. 16 out of the 28 EU foreign Ministers called on the Mogherini to expedite the policy last April. Israel's friends in the union- including the German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Greek, Cypriot, and Romanian Foreign Ministers, among others, did not sign the document.
In the decision, which was approved with by a crushing majority, the EU parliament called for a renewed approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. "The parliament urges the EU to become a real political player in the Middle East peace process, which would benefit the troubled region as a whole." The statement also calls on the union to, "impose a ban on arms exports from the EU to Israel, to prohibit all arms imports from Israel into the EU, and lift the blockade on Gaza."
The European parliament approved a decision calling for the labeling of settlement products on Thursday, with a vote of 525 for and 70 against. Only a small number of European states currently require the labeling of settlement products; however there is now a growing fear that the labeling will become a union-wide policy.
"The policy stinks of boycott," a foreign ministry spokesman said. One of the vote's articles includes a statement made by 16 European foreign ministers who backed the move in April.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response, "We remember what happened when Europeans marked Jewish goods. The EU decision is a distortion of justice and logic."
"The state of Israel views the vote with severity, especially the call for labeling products," the Foreign Ministry responded.
"The labeling of products is an act of discrimination which reeks of a boycott. We are talking about an attempt to force a political solution under the guise of a technical move," the statement continued.
"Europe is acting especially duplicitous in Israel's case, we have yet to see the same policies enacted against North Cyprus or Western Sahara," the ministry concluded.
Deputy Foreign Minister, MK Tzipi Hotovely said in response to the European parliamentary decision, "We must call the child by it's name – labeling products is a boycott. Israel will not allow any body to discriminate between products which are produced by Israeli citizens within Israel's territory."
"The attempts to force a one sided political solution, especially when the topic is product labeling, will lead to nowhere. Immediately following Rosh Hashana I plan to hold an urgent debate with the Europe section of the Ministry on the matter, and initiate a diplomatic campaign against the labeling initiative," she concluded. The European Union's Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini stated on Saturday that work on the union's settlement labeling policy is nearing completion.
As of now only a handful of states in the union instruct retail chains to label settlement products, including; Britain, Denmark, Belgium. As a result of the vote, the union is set to adopt a European settlement labeling policy. Luxemburg's Foreign Minister, Jean Asselborn said that the policy's publication is expected to occur by the end of the year.
The matter has been on the European Union's agenda for a number of years, but was never adopted as a binding decision. 16 out of the 28 EU foreign Ministers called on the Mogherini to expedite the policy last April. Israel's friends in the union- including the German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Greek, Cypriot, and Romanian Foreign Ministers, among others, did not sign the document.
In the decision, which was approved with by a crushing majority, the EU parliament called for a renewed approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. "The parliament urges the EU to become a real political player in the Middle East peace process, which would benefit the troubled region as a whole." The statement also calls on the union to, "impose a ban on arms exports from the EU to Israel, to prohibit all arms imports from Israel into the EU, and lift the blockade on Gaza."
8 sept 2015
BDS demonstration in Cape Town South Africa
The African National Congress' proposal would affect all South Africans but is directed at Jews who make aliyah and join IDF. In recent years South Africa has been a fierce critic of Israel.
The African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa, is considering the possibility of changing the country's policy of dual citizenship in order to prevent South African Jews from making aliyah and joining the IDF, reported the local Sunday Times.
According to the report, if the policy is changed it will affect every South African citizen holding another citizenship. The issue will be up for discussion at the general council of the ruling party next month. The party's step has already sparked criticism from Jewish groups in South Africa.
South Africa has been considered in recent years to be a very fierce critic of Israel, and many of its leaders and its citizens equate Israel's actions against the Palestinians with the conduct of the apartheid regime in South Africa until its collapse in the 1990s. Anti-Israel sentiment also lies in the fact that it maintained good relations with the racist apartheid regime, unlike many countries which boycotted it in order to bring about its downfall.
Numerous campaigns are held against Israel, especially to boycott Israeli products. A year and half ago, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa's Minister of Foreign Relations and Cooperation, announced that her government's ministers were not visiting Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
"We have agreed to slow down and reduce our contacts with the Israeli leadership until things start to look better," she explained. "The struggle of the people of Palestine is our struggle. The Palestinian embassy receives 100 percent of South African support."
In June 2013, Ismail Coovadia, former South African ambassador to Israel, sent a letter to pro-Palestinian activists and wrote that Israel discriminates against Palestinians in a manner reminiscent of apartheid.
The last conflict between Israel and South Africa occurred five months ago, when then Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman harshly attacked South Africa's Communist Party for coming out against Israel following the Israeli Foreign Ministry's denying a South African minister a visa to travel to the Palestinian territories.
Lieberman said that the words of the South African Communist Party were pure hypocrisy and he recalled the racist events that took place against foreigners in South Africa a few weeks before.
The African National Congress' proposal would affect all South Africans but is directed at Jews who make aliyah and join IDF. In recent years South Africa has been a fierce critic of Israel.
The African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa, is considering the possibility of changing the country's policy of dual citizenship in order to prevent South African Jews from making aliyah and joining the IDF, reported the local Sunday Times.
According to the report, if the policy is changed it will affect every South African citizen holding another citizenship. The issue will be up for discussion at the general council of the ruling party next month. The party's step has already sparked criticism from Jewish groups in South Africa.
South Africa has been considered in recent years to be a very fierce critic of Israel, and many of its leaders and its citizens equate Israel's actions against the Palestinians with the conduct of the apartheid regime in South Africa until its collapse in the 1990s. Anti-Israel sentiment also lies in the fact that it maintained good relations with the racist apartheid regime, unlike many countries which boycotted it in order to bring about its downfall.
Numerous campaigns are held against Israel, especially to boycott Israeli products. A year and half ago, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa's Minister of Foreign Relations and Cooperation, announced that her government's ministers were not visiting Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
"We have agreed to slow down and reduce our contacts with the Israeli leadership until things start to look better," she explained. "The struggle of the people of Palestine is our struggle. The Palestinian embassy receives 100 percent of South African support."
In June 2013, Ismail Coovadia, former South African ambassador to Israel, sent a letter to pro-Palestinian activists and wrote that Israel discriminates against Palestinians in a manner reminiscent of apartheid.
The last conflict between Israel and South Africa occurred five months ago, when then Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman harshly attacked South Africa's Communist Party for coming out against Israel following the Israeli Foreign Ministry's denying a South African minister a visa to travel to the Palestinian territories.
Lieberman said that the words of the South African Communist Party were pure hypocrisy and he recalled the racist events that took place against foreigners in South Africa a few weeks before.
Boycott Israel label
The following is a statement issued on September 7, 2015 by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broadest coalition in Palestinian society that leads the global BDS movement, following the announcement by the European Union (EU) that they will now require labeling of products originating from illegal Israeli settlement colonies on Palestinian land.
The statement reads as follows:
The BNC considered the European Union’s move towards labeling Israeli settlement products, announced at a recent EU press conference, as insufficient for fulfilling European states’ legal obligations under international law.
The press briefing by EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini followed the meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU’s 28 member states in Luxembourg. The growing European consensus around labeling Israel’s settlement products reflected mounting public pressure in Europe on policymakers to end the profound European complicity in Israel’s violations international law and Palestinian human rights.
Dr. Rafeef Ziadah, member of the BNC Secretariat commented, “If the EU is serious in implementing its own policy of non-recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the occupied Arab territories of 1967, why doesn’t it implement a ban on the import of products of Israeli companies that illegally operate in the occupied territories? Merely labeling, rather than banning, illegal settlement goods indicates political hypocrisy par excellence.”
Ziadah added, “The BDS movement’s pressure must continue at the grassroots level across Europe to compel decision-makers to comprehensively fulfill European states’ obligations under international law.”
“At a minimum, they must impose a two-way military embargo on Israel, as was done against apartheid South Africa, and implement the European Council on Foreign Relations’ recommendation to halt all financial transactions with Israeli banks that finance Israel’s occupation, including the wall and settlements.”
Mahmoud Nawajaa, BNC General Coordinator, explained, “One year after Israel’s 2014 massacre in Gaza, the least the EU should do is not to reward and sustain relations with entities that profit from serious Israeli violations of international law. Failing to do so would make a mockery of the EU’s stated commitment to human rights. It would also enhance Israel’s impunity, effectively encouraging it to commit new massacres against the Palestinian people.”
The BNC’s European Campaigns Officer, Riya Hassan, concluded, “The EU is legally obliged, in accordance with its charters and principles, to cease its collusion in Israel’s grave violations of international law. Aside from banning goods produced by Israeli companies operating in the occupied territories, this requires suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, based on Israel’s persistent breach of the agreement’s second clause which pertains to respecting human rights.”
More than 300 trade unions, NGOs and other civil society organizations from across Europe have called on the EU to end its support for Israel’s crimes, including by suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The call was supported by more than 60 MEPs.
Following public pressure and lobbying by Palestinian and European organizations, the EU introduced a policy stating it must not provide funding for or allow Israeli participation in EU projects if such participation amounts to recognition of Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian and Syrian territory.
However, the EU continues to provide funding to Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems and Israeli Aerospace Industries, and also to Hebrew University, which is partially based in occupied East Jerusalem.
The global BDS movement, which saw unprecedented traction lately, seeks to isolate Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid academically, culturally, economically and militarily until the Palestinian people can exercise their inalienable right to self-determination. At a minimum, this entails an end to the 1967 occupation and to Israel’s apartheid system, and the return of Palestinian refugees to the homes and lands from which they have been displaced during and since the 1948 Nakba.
The following is a statement issued on September 7, 2015 by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broadest coalition in Palestinian society that leads the global BDS movement, following the announcement by the European Union (EU) that they will now require labeling of products originating from illegal Israeli settlement colonies on Palestinian land.
The statement reads as follows:
The BNC considered the European Union’s move towards labeling Israeli settlement products, announced at a recent EU press conference, as insufficient for fulfilling European states’ legal obligations under international law.
The press briefing by EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini followed the meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU’s 28 member states in Luxembourg. The growing European consensus around labeling Israel’s settlement products reflected mounting public pressure in Europe on policymakers to end the profound European complicity in Israel’s violations international law and Palestinian human rights.
Dr. Rafeef Ziadah, member of the BNC Secretariat commented, “If the EU is serious in implementing its own policy of non-recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the occupied Arab territories of 1967, why doesn’t it implement a ban on the import of products of Israeli companies that illegally operate in the occupied territories? Merely labeling, rather than banning, illegal settlement goods indicates political hypocrisy par excellence.”
Ziadah added, “The BDS movement’s pressure must continue at the grassroots level across Europe to compel decision-makers to comprehensively fulfill European states’ obligations under international law.”
“At a minimum, they must impose a two-way military embargo on Israel, as was done against apartheid South Africa, and implement the European Council on Foreign Relations’ recommendation to halt all financial transactions with Israeli banks that finance Israel’s occupation, including the wall and settlements.”
Mahmoud Nawajaa, BNC General Coordinator, explained, “One year after Israel’s 2014 massacre in Gaza, the least the EU should do is not to reward and sustain relations with entities that profit from serious Israeli violations of international law. Failing to do so would make a mockery of the EU’s stated commitment to human rights. It would also enhance Israel’s impunity, effectively encouraging it to commit new massacres against the Palestinian people.”
The BNC’s European Campaigns Officer, Riya Hassan, concluded, “The EU is legally obliged, in accordance with its charters and principles, to cease its collusion in Israel’s grave violations of international law. Aside from banning goods produced by Israeli companies operating in the occupied territories, this requires suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, based on Israel’s persistent breach of the agreement’s second clause which pertains to respecting human rights.”
More than 300 trade unions, NGOs and other civil society organizations from across Europe have called on the EU to end its support for Israel’s crimes, including by suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The call was supported by more than 60 MEPs.
Following public pressure and lobbying by Palestinian and European organizations, the EU introduced a policy stating it must not provide funding for or allow Israeli participation in EU projects if such participation amounts to recognition of Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian and Syrian territory.
However, the EU continues to provide funding to Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems and Israeli Aerospace Industries, and also to Hebrew University, which is partially based in occupied East Jerusalem.
The global BDS movement, which saw unprecedented traction lately, seeks to isolate Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid academically, culturally, economically and militarily until the Palestinian people can exercise their inalienable right to self-determination. At a minimum, this entails an end to the 1967 occupation and to Israel’s apartheid system, and the return of Palestinian refugees to the homes and lands from which they have been displaced during and since the 1948 Nakba.
7 sept 2015
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has declared on Sunday evening that the bloc is due to decide to label illegal Israeli settlements products in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The European Union will soon decide on labeling rules to inform consumers if imported Israeli products come from Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, the bloc's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Saturday in a press briefing in Luxembourg.
Her comments came following a meeting of foreign ministers from the 28 EU member states in Luxembourg.
"The work is close to being finished but it is still ongoing," Mogherini said, referring to the final discussions on how to formulate the future guidelines.
Some EU countries, such as Britain, already issue guidance to shops so consumers can see if goods are made in the settlements, which most countries consider illegal, as they are not located within Israel's internationally recognized borders.
In April, the foreign ministers from 16 out of 28 EU countries sent a letter to Mogherini asking her to push forward the process of labeling goods produced in Israeli settlements.
The ministers wrote that the labeling of settlement products "is an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution."
Moreover, they argued that "the continued expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and other territories occupied by Israel in 1967, threatens the prospect of a just and final peace agreement."
The European Union will soon decide on labeling rules to inform consumers if imported Israeli products come from Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, the bloc's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Saturday in a press briefing in Luxembourg.
Her comments came following a meeting of foreign ministers from the 28 EU member states in Luxembourg.
"The work is close to being finished but it is still ongoing," Mogherini said, referring to the final discussions on how to formulate the future guidelines.
Some EU countries, such as Britain, already issue guidance to shops so consumers can see if goods are made in the settlements, which most countries consider illegal, as they are not located within Israel's internationally recognized borders.
In April, the foreign ministers from 16 out of 28 EU countries sent a letter to Mogherini asking her to push forward the process of labeling goods produced in Israeli settlements.
The ministers wrote that the labeling of settlement products "is an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution."
Moreover, they argued that "the continued expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and other territories occupied by Israel in 1967, threatens the prospect of a just and final peace agreement."
6 sept 2015
SodaStream has today announced it will finalize the closure of its West Bank factory in two weeks. SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum commented earlier that the boycott only had a “marginal” effect on their business and accusing the movement of “antisemitism.”
Mahmoud Nawajaa, The Palestine Boycott National Committee (BNC) General Coordinator, said:
“Coming just as French multinational Veolia has abandoned the Israeli market following a 7-year campaign against its support for settlements that cost it billions of dollars, SodaStream’s announcement today provides further proof that the BDS movement is increasingly able to hold corporate criminals to account for their role in Israeli apartheid and colonialism.”
“SodaStream may wish to try and smear our movement, but it is clear that BDS campaigning and the Scarlett Johansson controversy has persuaded retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream and contributed to SodaStream’s share price to tumble by half in the space of a year.”
“Even when this closure goes ahead, SodaStream will remain implicated in the displacement of Palestinians. Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights,”
“Israel willfully destroys the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, leading to unemployment and economic crisis. The way to tackle this is the challenge Israel’s system of colonialism and apartheid.”
“The BDS movement is opposed to all forms of racism, including anti-semitism and Islamaphobia.”
The BNC is the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that works to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Mahmoud Nawajaa, The Palestine Boycott National Committee (BNC) General Coordinator, said:
“Coming just as French multinational Veolia has abandoned the Israeli market following a 7-year campaign against its support for settlements that cost it billions of dollars, SodaStream’s announcement today provides further proof that the BDS movement is increasingly able to hold corporate criminals to account for their role in Israeli apartheid and colonialism.”
“SodaStream may wish to try and smear our movement, but it is clear that BDS campaigning and the Scarlett Johansson controversy has persuaded retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream and contributed to SodaStream’s share price to tumble by half in the space of a year.”
“Even when this closure goes ahead, SodaStream will remain implicated in the displacement of Palestinians. Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights,”
“Israel willfully destroys the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, leading to unemployment and economic crisis. The way to tackle this is the challenge Israel’s system of colonialism and apartheid.”
“The BDS movement is opposed to all forms of racism, including anti-semitism and Islamaphobia.”
The BNC is the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that works to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
30 aug 2015
The largest grocery store chain in Luxembourg, Cactus, announced the suspension of marketing vegetables and fruits exported by Israel, until it is verified that their source is not located in occupied Palestine.
According to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency, Israeli sources reported that the store chain "bows to pro-Palestinian activists", who have engaged in protests for months, now, to coax the chain to stop marketing Israeli products.
Cactus said that its income of such Israeli products is marginal and for that, it decided to suspend marketing in order to avoid protests in front of its branches.
However, Cactus decided to go on marketing other Israeli products such as SodaStream, which is considered a good source of income. SodaStream is located in the occupied West Bank.
Ynet reported that the Honorary Consul of Israel in Luxembourg, Daniel Schneider, contacted with the company's management to dissuade it from marketing Israeli vegetables and fruits.
Israeli is worried about increasing the number of companies refusing to market its products. Two months ago, Israel was able to stop a boycott campaign for its products in three stores located in northern Sweden.
According to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency, Israeli sources reported that the store chain "bows to pro-Palestinian activists", who have engaged in protests for months, now, to coax the chain to stop marketing Israeli products.
Cactus said that its income of such Israeli products is marginal and for that, it decided to suspend marketing in order to avoid protests in front of its branches.
However, Cactus decided to go on marketing other Israeli products such as SodaStream, which is considered a good source of income. SodaStream is located in the occupied West Bank.
Ynet reported that the Honorary Consul of Israel in Luxembourg, Daniel Schneider, contacted with the company's management to dissuade it from marketing Israeli vegetables and fruits.
Israeli is worried about increasing the number of companies refusing to market its products. Two months ago, Israel was able to stop a boycott campaign for its products in three stores located in northern Sweden.
French multinational company Veolia on Friday updated the Israeli occupation on its decision to withdraw its last holdings in Occupied Jerusalem.
General Coordinator of BDS Mahmoud Nawaja said in press statements the conglomerate French company rescinded its investment in Jerusalem Light Rail, thus completing its withdrawal from the Israeli market.
He added that the piece of news is being welcomed as an important victory by activists in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, for whom Veolia has been a major target for over seven years.
“We’ve been waging an open-ended war against the Israeli occupation especially in the economic field,” Nawaja added.
“The Light Rail project which Israel seeks to implement aims at Judaizing Occupied Jerusalem. This stands in sharp contrast to the laws adopted by the EU,” he added.
He said the losses inflicted by the boycott campaign are worth billions of dollars.
Since the start of 2014, the European Union officially started to boycott Israeli settlements in all fields, including commercial, academic and investment perspectives, while customs services in the European Union began to mark products from settlements to make them visible to European consumers.
The EU's decision to boycott settlements at various levels is based on the judgments issued by the International Court in The Hague in 2004, which stressed on the necessity of taking a position towards Israeli illegal settlements built on occupied Palestinian lands in the West Bank, highlighting that the settlements violate Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying government from allowing its population to inhabit a territory it has occupied.
General Coordinator of BDS Mahmoud Nawaja said in press statements the conglomerate French company rescinded its investment in Jerusalem Light Rail, thus completing its withdrawal from the Israeli market.
He added that the piece of news is being welcomed as an important victory by activists in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, for whom Veolia has been a major target for over seven years.
“We’ve been waging an open-ended war against the Israeli occupation especially in the economic field,” Nawaja added.
“The Light Rail project which Israel seeks to implement aims at Judaizing Occupied Jerusalem. This stands in sharp contrast to the laws adopted by the EU,” he added.
He said the losses inflicted by the boycott campaign are worth billions of dollars.
Since the start of 2014, the European Union officially started to boycott Israeli settlements in all fields, including commercial, academic and investment perspectives, while customs services in the European Union began to mark products from settlements to make them visible to European consumers.
The EU's decision to boycott settlements at various levels is based on the judgments issued by the International Court in The Hague in 2004, which stressed on the necessity of taking a position towards Israeli illegal settlements built on occupied Palestinian lands in the West Bank, highlighting that the settlements violate Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying government from allowing its population to inhabit a territory it has occupied.
26 aug 2015
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” – Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists have on Wednesday welcomed the statement issued by more than 1,000 African American activists, artists and scholars in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, justice and equality and in support of BDS.
The statement unequivocally calls for BDS and places an emphasis on the right of Palestinian refugees to “return to their homeland in present-day Israel” as “the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians.”
Mahmoud Nawajaa, the general coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the broad Palestinian civil society coalition that leads the BDS movement, welcomed the declaration by saying, “The statement’s support for BDS against Israel’s regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid is particularly inspiring as it translates principled positions into morally-consistent actions that are capable of righting injustices.”
“The US civil rights movement has always been a key inspiration for us in the BDS movement. We are deeply moved by this powerful proclamation that evokes the spirit of that heroic civil rights struggle and the inspirational Black Lives Matter movement and epitomises speaking truth to power,” Nawajaa added.
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, reacted to the statement, “This deeply moving and noble declaration by our Black brothers and sisters in the US and elsewhere is not just a genuine expression of effective, altruistic international solidarity. It is a poignant testament to the organic links that connect the Palestinian struggle for self-determination with the struggle of the oppressed around the world, including ongoing struggles for racial and economic justice by black people in the US and across the world.”
Barghouti added, “Despite the obvious differences, there are compelling similarities between the forms of oppression that both Palestinians and African-Americans live under. Dehumanization, dispossession, racial injustice and discrimination, state violence, criminalization of entire communities and impunity are all key characteristics are of the oppression faced by black Americans and Palestinians.”
The leading Black activists, scholars and artists’ call for boycotts and divestment against the private security company G4S is especially noteworthy. “G4S harms thousands of Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US,” their statement said. It profits from “incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia,” the statement added, rejecting notions of “security” that “make any of our groups unsafe” and insisting that “no one is free until all of us are.”
In 2012, the BNC was one of several Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations that launched a large international BDS campaign against G4S, the British-Danish private security company that is deeply involved in Israel’s violations of prisoners’ rights and international law.
The boycott campaign has cost G4S many contracts around the world, including in the US, Ireland, Norway, South Africa, among others.
Under this intense pressure from the BDS movement, G4S has announced that it will not renew its contract with the Israeli Prison Service when it lapses in 2017. However, G4S has not yet made any written confirmation of this decision or ended any of its contracts supporting Israeli settlements, prisons, checkpoints and military bases, so Palestinian organisations are calling for the G4S campaign to continue.
BNC secretariat member Rafeef Ziadah said, “The BDS movement joins hands with the 1,000 Black activists that have issued this statement and with communities across the world in calling for the intensification of campaigns against G4S. Let us resist the role the company plays in human rights violations across the world, from Florida to Jerusalem and everywhere in between.”
“The current surge of mass Black activism for justice rekindles the whole world’s hope for a more peaceful, just and dignified world,” Ziadah added.
Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists have on Wednesday welcomed the statement issued by more than 1,000 African American activists, artists and scholars in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, justice and equality and in support of BDS.
The statement unequivocally calls for BDS and places an emphasis on the right of Palestinian refugees to “return to their homeland in present-day Israel” as “the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians.”
Mahmoud Nawajaa, the general coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the broad Palestinian civil society coalition that leads the BDS movement, welcomed the declaration by saying, “The statement’s support for BDS against Israel’s regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid is particularly inspiring as it translates principled positions into morally-consistent actions that are capable of righting injustices.”
“The US civil rights movement has always been a key inspiration for us in the BDS movement. We are deeply moved by this powerful proclamation that evokes the spirit of that heroic civil rights struggle and the inspirational Black Lives Matter movement and epitomises speaking truth to power,” Nawajaa added.
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, reacted to the statement, “This deeply moving and noble declaration by our Black brothers and sisters in the US and elsewhere is not just a genuine expression of effective, altruistic international solidarity. It is a poignant testament to the organic links that connect the Palestinian struggle for self-determination with the struggle of the oppressed around the world, including ongoing struggles for racial and economic justice by black people in the US and across the world.”
Barghouti added, “Despite the obvious differences, there are compelling similarities between the forms of oppression that both Palestinians and African-Americans live under. Dehumanization, dispossession, racial injustice and discrimination, state violence, criminalization of entire communities and impunity are all key characteristics are of the oppression faced by black Americans and Palestinians.”
The leading Black activists, scholars and artists’ call for boycotts and divestment against the private security company G4S is especially noteworthy. “G4S harms thousands of Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US,” their statement said. It profits from “incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia,” the statement added, rejecting notions of “security” that “make any of our groups unsafe” and insisting that “no one is free until all of us are.”
In 2012, the BNC was one of several Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations that launched a large international BDS campaign against G4S, the British-Danish private security company that is deeply involved in Israel’s violations of prisoners’ rights and international law.
The boycott campaign has cost G4S many contracts around the world, including in the US, Ireland, Norway, South Africa, among others.
Under this intense pressure from the BDS movement, G4S has announced that it will not renew its contract with the Israeli Prison Service when it lapses in 2017. However, G4S has not yet made any written confirmation of this decision or ended any of its contracts supporting Israeli settlements, prisons, checkpoints and military bases, so Palestinian organisations are calling for the G4S campaign to continue.
BNC secretariat member Rafeef Ziadah said, “The BDS movement joins hands with the 1,000 Black activists that have issued this statement and with communities across the world in calling for the intensification of campaigns against G4S. Let us resist the role the company plays in human rights violations across the world, from Florida to Jerusalem and everywhere in between.”
“The current surge of mass Black activism for justice rekindles the whole world’s hope for a more peaceful, just and dignified world,” Ziadah added.
21 aug 2015
Over 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students, and organizations have launched a statement expressing their solidarity and commitment to ensuring justice for Palestinians.
Signatories to the statement span a wide cross-section of Black activists and scholars, including Angela Davis, Boots Riley, Cornel West, dream hampton, Emory Douglas, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa, Patrisse Cullors, Phil Hutchings, Ramona Africa, Robin DG Kelley, Rosa Clemente, Talib Kweli, and Tef Poe. 38 organizations signed on to the statement as well, including The Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Institute of the Black World 21st Century, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Organization for Black Struggle.
The statement is printed in full below:
“The past year has been one of high-profile growth for Black-Palestinian solidarity. Out of the terror directed against us—from numerous attacks on Black life to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and chokehold on the West Bank—strengthened resilience and joint-struggle have emerged between our movements. Palestinians on Twitter were among the first to provide international support for protesters in Ferguson, where St. Louis-based Palestinians gave support on the ground. Last November, a delegation of Palestinian students visited Black organizers in St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit and more, just months before the Dream Defenders took representatives of Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, and other racial justice groups to Palestine. Throughout the year, Palestinians sent multiple letters of solidarity to us throughout protests in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore. We offer this statement to continue the conversation between our movements:
On the anniversary of last summer’s Gaza massacre, in the 48th year of Israeli occupation, the 67th year of Palestinians’ ongoing Nakba (the Arabic word for Israel’s ethnic cleansing)—and in the fourth century of Black oppression in the present-day United States—we, the undersigned Black activists, artists, scholars, writers, and political prisoners offer this letter of reaffirmed solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people.
We can neither forgive nor forget last summer’s violence. We remain outraged at the brutality Israel unleashed on Gaza through its siege by land, sea and air, and three military offensives in six years. We remain sickened by Israel’s targeting of homes, schools, UN shelters, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals. We remain heartbroken and repulsed by the number of children Israel killed in an operation it called “defensive.” We reject Israel’s framing of itself as a victim. Anyone who takes an honest look at the destruction to life and property in Gaza can see Israel committed a one-sided slaughter. With 100,000 people still homeless in Gaza, the massacre’s effects continue to devastate Gaza today and will for years to come.
Israel’s injustice and cruelty toward Palestinians is not limited to Gaza and its problem is not with any particular Palestinian party. The oppression of Palestinians extends throughout the occupied territories, within Israel’s 1948 borders, and into neighboring countries. The Israeli Occupation Forces continue to kill protesters—including children—conduct night raids on civilians, hold hundreds of people under indefinite detention, and demolish homes while expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements. Israeli politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu, incite against Palestinian citizens within Israel’s recognized borders, where over 50 laws discriminate against non-Jewish people.
Our support extends to those living under occupation and siege, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the 7 million Palestinian refugees exiled in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. The refugees’ right to return to their homeland in present-day Israel is the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians.
Palestinian liberation represents an inherent threat to Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty. While we acknowledge that the apartheid configuration in Israel/Palestine is unique from the United States (and South Africa), we continue to see connections between the situation of Palestinians and Black people.
Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.
US and Israeli officials and media criminalize our existence, portray violence against us as “isolated incidents,” and call our resistance “illegitimate” or “terrorism.” These narratives ignore decades and centuries of anti-Palestinian and anti-Black violence that have always been at the core of Israel and the US. We recognize the racism that characterizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is also directed against others in the region, including intolerance, police brutality, and violence against Israel’s African population. Israeli officials call asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea “infiltrators” and detain them in the desert, while the state has sterilized Ethiopian Israelis without their knowledge or consent. These issues call for unified action against anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and Zionism.
We know Israel’s violence toward Palestinians would be impossible without the US defending Israel on the world stage and funding its violence with over $3 billion annually. We call on the US government to end economic and diplomatic aid to Israel. We wholeheartedly endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and call on Black and US institutions and organizations to do the same. We urge people of conscience to recognize the struggle for Palestinian liberation as a key matter of our time.
As the BDS movement grows, we offer G4S, the world’s largest private security company, as a target for further joint struggle. G4S harms thousands of Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US. The corporation profits from incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia. We reject notions of “security” that make any of our groups unsafe and insist no one is free until all of us are.
We offer this statement first and foremost to Palestinians, whose suffering does not go unnoticed and whose resistance and resilience under racism and colonialism inspires us. It is to Palestinians, as well as the Israeli and US governments, that we declare our commitment to working through cultural, economic, and political means to ensure Palestinian liberation at the same time as we work towards our own. We encourage activists to use this statement to advance solidarity with Palestine and we also pressure our own Black political figures to finally take action on this issue. As we continue these transnational conversations and interactions, we aim to sharpen our practice of joint struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and the various racisms embedded in and around our societies.”
Visit www.blackforpalestine.com for the full list of signatories and more information. You can also follow the statement on Facebook and Twitter. Kristian Bailey is a co-author of the statement along with Khury Petersen-Smith. http://www.blackforpalestine.com/read-the-statement.html
Signatories to the statement span a wide cross-section of Black activists and scholars, including Angela Davis, Boots Riley, Cornel West, dream hampton, Emory Douglas, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa, Patrisse Cullors, Phil Hutchings, Ramona Africa, Robin DG Kelley, Rosa Clemente, Talib Kweli, and Tef Poe. 38 organizations signed on to the statement as well, including The Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Institute of the Black World 21st Century, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Organization for Black Struggle.
The statement is printed in full below:
“The past year has been one of high-profile growth for Black-Palestinian solidarity. Out of the terror directed against us—from numerous attacks on Black life to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and chokehold on the West Bank—strengthened resilience and joint-struggle have emerged between our movements. Palestinians on Twitter were among the first to provide international support for protesters in Ferguson, where St. Louis-based Palestinians gave support on the ground. Last November, a delegation of Palestinian students visited Black organizers in St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit and more, just months before the Dream Defenders took representatives of Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, and other racial justice groups to Palestine. Throughout the year, Palestinians sent multiple letters of solidarity to us throughout protests in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore. We offer this statement to continue the conversation between our movements:
On the anniversary of last summer’s Gaza massacre, in the 48th year of Israeli occupation, the 67th year of Palestinians’ ongoing Nakba (the Arabic word for Israel’s ethnic cleansing)—and in the fourth century of Black oppression in the present-day United States—we, the undersigned Black activists, artists, scholars, writers, and political prisoners offer this letter of reaffirmed solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and commitment to the liberation of Palestine’s land and people.
We can neither forgive nor forget last summer’s violence. We remain outraged at the brutality Israel unleashed on Gaza through its siege by land, sea and air, and three military offensives in six years. We remain sickened by Israel’s targeting of homes, schools, UN shelters, mosques, ambulances, and hospitals. We remain heartbroken and repulsed by the number of children Israel killed in an operation it called “defensive.” We reject Israel’s framing of itself as a victim. Anyone who takes an honest look at the destruction to life and property in Gaza can see Israel committed a one-sided slaughter. With 100,000 people still homeless in Gaza, the massacre’s effects continue to devastate Gaza today and will for years to come.
Israel’s injustice and cruelty toward Palestinians is not limited to Gaza and its problem is not with any particular Palestinian party. The oppression of Palestinians extends throughout the occupied territories, within Israel’s 1948 borders, and into neighboring countries. The Israeli Occupation Forces continue to kill protesters—including children—conduct night raids on civilians, hold hundreds of people under indefinite detention, and demolish homes while expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements. Israeli politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu, incite against Palestinian citizens within Israel’s recognized borders, where over 50 laws discriminate against non-Jewish people.
Our support extends to those living under occupation and siege, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the 7 million Palestinian refugees exiled in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. The refugees’ right to return to their homeland in present-day Israel is the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians.
Palestinian liberation represents an inherent threat to Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty. While we acknowledge that the apartheid configuration in Israel/Palestine is unique from the United States (and South Africa), we continue to see connections between the situation of Palestinians and Black people.
Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.
US and Israeli officials and media criminalize our existence, portray violence against us as “isolated incidents,” and call our resistance “illegitimate” or “terrorism.” These narratives ignore decades and centuries of anti-Palestinian and anti-Black violence that have always been at the core of Israel and the US. We recognize the racism that characterizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is also directed against others in the region, including intolerance, police brutality, and violence against Israel’s African population. Israeli officials call asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea “infiltrators” and detain them in the desert, while the state has sterilized Ethiopian Israelis without their knowledge or consent. These issues call for unified action against anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and Zionism.
We know Israel’s violence toward Palestinians would be impossible without the US defending Israel on the world stage and funding its violence with over $3 billion annually. We call on the US government to end economic and diplomatic aid to Israel. We wholeheartedly endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and call on Black and US institutions and organizations to do the same. We urge people of conscience to recognize the struggle for Palestinian liberation as a key matter of our time.
As the BDS movement grows, we offer G4S, the world’s largest private security company, as a target for further joint struggle. G4S harms thousands of Palestinian political prisoners illegally held in Israel and hundreds of Black and brown youth held in its privatized juvenile prisons in the US. The corporation profits from incarceration and deportation from the US and Palestine, to the UK, South Africa, and Australia. We reject notions of “security” that make any of our groups unsafe and insist no one is free until all of us are.
We offer this statement first and foremost to Palestinians, whose suffering does not go unnoticed and whose resistance and resilience under racism and colonialism inspires us. It is to Palestinians, as well as the Israeli and US governments, that we declare our commitment to working through cultural, economic, and political means to ensure Palestinian liberation at the same time as we work towards our own. We encourage activists to use this statement to advance solidarity with Palestine and we also pressure our own Black political figures to finally take action on this issue. As we continue these transnational conversations and interactions, we aim to sharpen our practice of joint struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and the various racisms embedded in and around our societies.”
Visit www.blackforpalestine.com for the full list of signatories and more information. You can also follow the statement on Facebook and Twitter. Kristian Bailey is a co-author of the statement along with Khury Petersen-Smith. http://www.blackforpalestine.com/read-the-statement.html