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StopTheWall.org
The Struggle Continues: Boycotting Israeli Apartheid Conference,
which opens this evening, is a response to a call made by 171
Palestinian civil-society organizations in July 2005 for the
international community to implement a comprehensive Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) strategy against apartheid Israel as
the focal point of solidarity efforts with the Palestinian people.
Israel is an apartheid state that shares many features of South
African apartheid. "We are not using the term apartheid
metaphorically, or as a vague analogy; Israel's treatment of
Palestinians corresponds to the legal definition of apartheid as
articulated by the UN and the International Criminal Court,"
explains Navyug Gill, spokesperson for the Coalition Against Israeli
Apartheid, the group convening the conference. Palestinian citizens
of Israel are denied the right to control and develop land in over
90% of that area because they are Palestinian. Palestinians expelled
in 1948 and 1967 are denied the right to return to their homes and
lands, despite the fact that anyone of Jewish background has the
automatic right to become an Israeli citizen. In the occupied West
Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians live under separate and
discriminatory military law, and their mobility, education, health
and work.
Through the operation of checkpoints, Israeli-only highways, and an
internationally condemned Apartheid Wall, Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza have been confined to open-air prisons akin to
apartheid South Africa's Bantustans. "The Wall scythes through the
landscape as it nears completion, forming part of an intricate
system of control with the fortified settler-only roads to steal 48%
of lands in the West Bank. Palestinians in Gaza, 80% of whom are
refugees from the lands they were expelled from in 1948, are
imprisoned behind two Walls," explains Jamal Juma', coordinator of
the Stop the Wall Campaign in Palestine.
"A dependent Bantustan alongside an apartheid state is a mockery of
self- determination—as it existed in apartheid South Africa and now
in apartheid Israel," says Salim Vally, chair of the Palestine
Solidarity Committee of South Africa. "As South Africans, we realize
that we will never be free until Palestine and Palestinians are
free."
Responding to Israel's assaults on Gaza in a speech last July,
Willie Madisha, recently re-elected president of the Congress of
South African Trade Unions (COSATU), stated: "Israel continues to
kill innocent women and children with the ruthlessness that even we
did not see during the erstwhile apartheid S.A." Two weeks ago,
COSATU's national congress expressed support for an international
BDS campaign and unanimously passed a motion calling on its members
"to boycott Israeli goods and to demonstrate at the embassies of
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the U.S. and Israel."
The Canadian government provides extensive political and
economic support to Israeli apartheid. "Canadian
corporations profit through investments and joint
operations with Israeli companies. Canada and Israel
have a Free Trade agreement called CIFTA, andthe
province of Ontario recently negotiated a trade
agreement with Israel. Some of the organizations playing
a central role in the implementation of apartheid on the
land of Palestine, such as the Jewish National Fund,
have charitable status in Canada," says Khaled Mouammar,
a CAIA spokesperson. "The Canadian government has long
provided diplomatic support for Israel. The Harper
government's unequivocal backing of Israeli aggression
in Gaza and Lebanon this summer is just the most recent
example," adds Gill.
The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid is calling for
Canadian economic, political, military, cultural and
institutional support for Israel to be cut off. "We are
calling for BDS until Israel recognizes the Palestinian
people's inalienable right to self-determination and
complies with its obligations under international law,"
says Mouammar.
The BDS campaign is international in scope. "We have
called a day of action tomorrow, October 7, focusing on
the boycott of Israeli goods. Actions are planned in
over 20 cities throughout the UK," says Betty Hunter,
General Secretary of the London-based Palestine
Solidarity Campaign, who will join Juma', Vally, and
over 30 other speakers presenting at the conference.
In Canada and Quebec, the boycott has already begun.
Last May, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE-Ontario)
passed a resolution in support of a BDS campaign
explicitly targeting Israeli apartheid. The Quebec-based
Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine (CJPP),
which includes a number of Quebec labour unions, also
passed a BDS motion at the beginning of the year. And
the United Church of Canada's Toronto conference, which
represents some 300 congregations in Ontario, joined the
BDS campaign in June.
The Struggle Continues: Boycotting Israeli Apartheid
Conference will provide a forum for different sectors –
including campus groups, unions, artists, community and
faith-based organizations – to come together to build a
common strategy. "We hope that this conference will
build on the momentum created by the CUPE Ontario
resolution endorsing a BDS campaign last May," says
Gill. "It will bring us a major step forward in our
effort to build a national boycott, divestment, and
sanctions campaign capable of challenging Israeli
apartheid and Canadian support for it."
Adds Jamal Juma': "The facts on the ground in Palestine
are there for all to see. We need action. We need
political pressure on the Occupation. We need freedom."
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MEDIA CONTACT: (647) 831-5516 or
media@caiaweb.org
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