Commemorating Land Day, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) invites people of conscience around the world to unite for a BDS Global Day of Action on 30 March 2012 in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom, justice and equality and for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it fully complies with its obligations under international law.

Let’s showcase our BDS successes through creative actions and media efforts and mobilize for the World Social Forum Free Palestine in November 2012.

First launched at the World Social Forum in 2009, the BDS Global Day of Action on 30 March coincides with Palestinian Land Day, initiated in 1976, when Israeli security forces shot and killed six Palestinian citizens of Israel and injured many in an attempt to crush popular protest against ongoing theft of Palestinian-owned land. Thirty-six years on, Israel continues to entrench its regime of occupation, colonization and apartheid and intensify its grave violations of the basic rights of Palestinians everywhere, whether those living under occupation, citizens of Israel, or the majority of the Palestinians, the refugees.

In the past year we have continued to witness a historic outburst of people power motivated by the desire for justice and freedom from tyranny and corporate greed. There is renewed belief in popular struggles as a means to achieve human emancipation and empowerment. Ordinary people have bravely stood up to the decades-old regimes of the Arab region, overcoming their fears and challenging their longstanding subjugation. Largely inspired by the Arab popular upheavals and earlier, similar uprisings across Latin America, people across the world have vocally “occupied” the centers of corporate exploitation or otherwise mobilized to demand social justice and an end to devastating wars. The ‘Arab Spring’ has given new impetus to the ongoing struggle against imperial hegemony in the global south and a new reach for the alternatives to neoliberalism. The global 99% are further uniting and connecting their struggles for justice, rights and dignity.

In this spirit of shared struggle, we invite Palestine solidarity activists and all those active in social justice and human rights causes worldwide to use this day of action to launch a far reaching mobilization effort towards the upcoming World Social Forum Free Palestine to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in November 2012 and to take action to highlight and develop the key campaigns of our global movement.

The Forum will provide a unique space for discussion of a unified global strategy to uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination and end Israeli violations of international law.

Ideas for action

The BDS Global Day of Action is an opportunity to showcase the achievements of our diverse and global movement through visible and creative actions. The BNC calls on supporters of Palestinian rights to focus on developing thoroughly researched, broad based and strategic BDS campaigns that are based on the three operational principles of the movement: context-sensitivity, gradualness and sustainability.  Developing such a long-term vision is essential for the growth and sustainable success of the movement.

With these criteria in mind, the BNC suggests the following forms of action for this BDS Global Day of Action:

1. Organize a visible and creative protest, flash mob or action that promotes an existing long-term campaign to a new audience;

2. Prepare outreach meetings or events or media initiatives that seek to bring BDS to new audiences;

3. Launch mobilization initiatives for the WSF Free Palestine, to be held in late November in Port Alegre, Brazil. Consider announcing the formation of national, regional or sector mobilizing committees and to start public and media outreach. The mobilizing committees for the WSF Free Palestine serve to mobilize and to discuss how to use this opportunity to strengthen local solidarity efforts and provide them with global reach and exposure. More information here.

4. Where possible, use the Global BDS Day of Action as a launching pad for new BDS campaign initiatives;

5. Call on governments to implement incremental sanctions against Israel, by heeding the call from Palestinian civil society for a military embargo on Israel or by suspending free trade agreements or other agreements;

6. Publicize, promote and make use of the recently published report issued by EU heads of mission to occupied Jerusalem calling for preventing and discouraging “financial transactions in support of [Israeli] settlement activity.” This can be accurately interpreted as a call for a ban on colonial settlement products from entering the EU market and for effective measures against all actors implicated in Israel’s colonization of East Jerusalem and the rest of the OPT.

Join the BDS Global Day of Action on Land Day, 30 March 2012!

For information on how to join this global event and how to develop ongoing BDS action in your country, organization and network, please contact the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) at: bdsdayofaction@bdsmovement.net.

We’ll be highlighting all of the day’s actions on the bdsmovement.net website, so please send any information about planned actions ahead of time to bdsdayofaction@bdsmovement.net.

On the day itself, let’s all use Twitter hashtag #bds to promote our actions and don’t forget to follow @bdsmovement to follow the action as it unfolds!

For further inspiration:

BDS Global Day of Action 2011 press release
BDS Global Day of Action 2010 press release

The Jewish National Fund has designated Sunday 5th February as ‘Green Sunday’, when it encourages people to donate money to ‘plant trees in Israel’.  The JNF claims to have environmental objectives.  Don’t be taken in.  The JNF’s tree planting is a cover for ethnic cleansing.

The JNF exists to acquire land in Israel/Palestine for the sole use of Jewish people.  For more than 100 years, the JNF has been complicit in expulsions of Palestinians from their homes, the destruction of their villages and prevention of the return of refugees – by planting trees over the remnants of the destroyed homes.

Environmentalists are asked to use the opportunity of the JNF’s ‘Green Sunday’ to take a stand against this greenwash, when ethnic cleansing masquerades as environmental action.  Don’t support the JNF’s ‘Green Sunday’, but publicly denounce the JNF.

Environmental groups throughout the world are adding their support to the international call from Palestinian civil society to Stop the JNF.

Don’t support the JNF’s ‘Green Sunday’. Instead, use the opportunity to:

• Endorse the call against the JNF
• Read the Open Letter to Environmentalists by Eurig Scandrett
• Read the testimony from Friends of the Earth Palestine
• Protest the JNF’s presence at environmental events such as Rio+20 this year
• Help the ecological rehabilitation of Palestine by planting a tree in Palestine
• Find out more about the JNF’s greenwash from the e-book Greenwashing Apartheid: The Jewish National Fund’s Environmental Cover Up
• Take action – get involved in Stop the JNF through www.stopthejnf.org and by emailing info@stopthejnf.org
• If you are involved in environmental justice, contact us at environment@stopthejnf.org

24 January 2012 | In These Times

Behind the headlines, Palestinians are using nonviolent direct action to protest the status quo.

WEST BANK, PALESTINE – On November 15, Mazin Qumsiyeh and other Palestinian activists boarded public bus number 148, an Israelis-only bus that normally takes Jews from the Israeli West Bank settlement of Ariel to Jerusalem. The bus took the group to the Hizma checkpoint, just outside the northern entrance of Jerusalem, where activists resisted authorities’ efforts to remove them. Eventually, as a camera broadcast the action online, eight people were pulled from the bus and arrested. They were charged with “illegal entry to Jerusalem” and “obstructing police business.”

Qumsiyeh hopes this recent “freedom ride” – possible because a bus driver let them ride by mistake, he said – will spark the same kind of response that its namesake did across the United States in the early 1960s, when interstate bus trips helped end racial segregation in the South. Qumsiyeh, author of Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment says other examples of nonviolent resistance says, include protests of the separation barrier (which many Palestinians call an “apartheid wall”) that has effectively turned 10 percent of Palestinian land into Israeli land since its construction began in 2002; school girls holding class in the street when they can’t get to their schools because of Israeli interference; and farmers braving Israeli intimidation to harvest olives. “For us to exist on this land is to resist,” says Qumsiyeh, who teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit universities.

Most readers of mainstream media in the United States think of the First Intifada (1987-92) as the stone-throwing uprising and the Second Intifada (2000-2004) as the attack of the suicide bombers. They may have heard of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, started in 2005 by more than 170 Palestinian civil society groups. (The movement aims to curtail benefits accruing to businesses that benefit from the occupation.) But few are aware of Palestinians’ longstanding creative efforts to use nonviolent direct action in their struggle for self-determination. Those efforts, from the tax revolt in Beit Sahour during the First Intifada to creative actions led by Palestinians like Qumsiyeh, are often supported by both international and Israeli activists. And they are proliferating.

Ghassan Andoni, cofounder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and a leader of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People, says nonviolent direct action by Palestinians opposed to the Israeli occupation started before the First Intifada. “Activities included throwing military identity cards issued by the occupation as a way to tell the occupier that we don’t recognize your authority and there is no contract between us,” Andoni said in an interview in Bethlehem in mid-November. “Then we stopped paying taxes and submitting monthly reports saying, ‘No taxation without representation.’”

The First Intifada also saw the creation of autonomous communities all over the West Bank. “We established our own economy to detach from the occupation,” Andoni explained. Large protest marches and solidarity campaigns were also organized with international activists and Israelis. ISM has staged “die-ins” in front of Israeli tanks, and its members have chained themselves to homes the Israeli government wants to demolish, and obstructed the Israeli army from imposing a curfew. As popular resistance among Palestinians has spread, Andoni increasingly sees ISM’s role as supporting local nonviolent initiatives.

Bil’in, a village near Ramallah, is one such initiative. Residents of Bil’in have mobilized against Israel’s West Bank security barrier. Since construction of the fence began there in 2005, villagers have staged various events. After the release of the film Avatar, with its story line of the occupation of Pandora and the rape of its resources, Palestinians painted themselves blue to look like Pandorans. On another occasion, they lugged a television to the fence and cheered their favorite teams during a World Cup tournament to show that normal life would go on.

Bil’in activists photograph and videotape every protest. “The camera is our gun,” says Iyad Burnat, who heads the resistance committee in the village. In 2011 the barrier was moved a short distance away from its initial location in Bil’in, on orders from the Israeli High Court. But much of the village remains on the Israeli side of the fence, and protests continue.

What is the ultimate goal of nonviolent action, beyond stopping the security wall and ending the occupation? “One state or two states?” is not the right question to start with, Qumsiyeh says. “The right question to ask is, ‘What is the right thing to do that will guarantee the safety and security and peace and humanity of everybody in the long run?’ Once we can agree, we’ll work toward that.”

Melinda Tuhus is an independent journalist with 25 years of experience in print and radio, including In These Times, The New York Times, Free Speech Radio News and public radio stations.

A collective of students in Gaza has formed the Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI). These students are seeking to expand their collaboration and participation in events and activities with solidarity activists at international universities.

PSCABI members participate in many activities here in Gaza and are heavily involved in supporting the international student solidarity movements, especially with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns. PSCABI members frequently write letters out of Gaza, some of which we have listed below, encouraging people to participate in the boycott and thanking people who have supported the Palestinian cause.

PSCABI members are available to share ideas, participate via Skype or other technology in remote events, organize and strategize together, hear about your activities and provide information and narratives as Palestinian university students for your distribution, and provide access to voices speaking directly from besieged Gaza.

If you are interested in:

• communicating with PSCABI
• hosting a Skype conference with a PSCABI member
• developing your organization’s relationship with PSCABI

please contact us at pscabi@usacbi.org.

Past Letters from PSCABI:

13 January 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

I always knew I would go to Palestine one day. It wasn’t until I met my four friends from Gaza, Motasem, Mohammed, Hussein and Mo’min, during my time as an exchange student at a Turkish university, that I finally decided to go. Their humble and honest account of what was happening in Palestine inspired me to come and experience the situation myself. After three months in the West Bank, I wish everyone would take the opportunity to come here and see the situation themselves.

Being an international in Palestine means that you share the everyday life of ordinary people who have the same aspirations as everyone else. It’s a small act of solidarity and a way of saying, “I see you and I stand with you.” You will not only have a family and a home but also an incredible insight to a beautiful culture which most often is forgotten when headlines from this region reach the world.

Whether I’ve been up north in Nablus or down south in Al Khalil (Hebron), people have welcomed me and treated me as one of their own. Never in my life has my family been this big. Maybe because of this, the occupation seem a lot more personal to me now than when I first arrived here. Palestinians are not just Palestinians, but my brothers and sisters, friends and family.

The young teenager being detained at the checkpoint could be my brother, and the young girls who are being assaulted by soldiers on their way to school could be my sisters.

The middle aged man who tries to stop the bulldozer from demolishing his family’s home could be my father, and the middle aged woman who is quicklypicking olives  because of looming, violent settlers, she could be my mother.

The very old man who has to take the long way up the stairs carrying his bags (because all Palestinians are forbidden from entering Shuhada Street in Hebron) could be my grandfather, and the very old lady who is afraid of soldiers because they enter her home in the middle of the night could be my grandmother.

Every one of them could be family and indeed, for three months in Palestine, all of them were. When I left Sweden my friends and family worried that I might be hurt or injured because the Palestinian territory is supposed to be a dangerous place. However as I immediately discovered, Palestine is not a violent place and Palestine is not dangerous. What is dangerous and violent is the 64 year old occupation which has been imposed on Palestinians since 1948.

When I say that it is violent I want to distinguish between two sorts of violence. As an international in Palestine you see mainly the structural violence or the everyday violence in forms of military presence, checkpoints, watch towers, roadblocks, verbal assaults and harassment. If you stay long enough you will also experience or see some direct violence such as random arrests, house raids, home demolitions, prevention of Palestinian peaceful protests in form of rubber coated steel bullets, live ammunition, sound bombs, teargas and people being shot and abused.

The list can easily be made longer. These abuses of basic human rights are not only illegal under international law but very dangerous and violent both for the individual and the community. Occupation deprives Palestinians of their basic human needs, rights and recognition as human beings. It is violent and dangerous because it denies them the right to stay, live, and exist on their own land.

As such, occupation is visible and institutionalized in every aspect of life in Palestine.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was in the beautiful and very old Ibrahimi mosque in Al Khalil, when Israeli male and female soldiers entered in uniforms, with boots and weapons among praying Muslims. In addition all Israeli female soldiers refrained from covering their hair, which is a custom when entering a holy sanctuary in Islam. Religion doesn’t have a nationality but is something that transcends borders and should be respected as part of human dignity. The choice to enter the mosque in this way meant that they not only degraded Islam as a religion, but they also made sure to violate the most important place and last resort that Palestinians can go to in order to seek some peace and privacy. And this is the very idea of the occupation. It has nothing to do with security or Israel trying to protect itself. Rather it’s a strategy of occupation which aims at making life unbearable for Palestinians so that they will move and eventually leave whatever land they have left.

Soldiers harassing Palestinians and  roadblocks, checkpoints, and temporary closure of roads are part of the strategy. It has absolutely nothing to do with security or protection. Since the beginning of the occupation, Israeli citizens are protected by civil law while Palestinians are under military law. This implicates several things. First of all, Israeli soldiers are not allowed to arrest or detain any Israeli citizen.

In the West Bank where settler violence against Palestinians has increased, soldiers in charge are not allowed to interfere with their citizens since their mandate is directed towards Palestinians only. There are several accounts where Israeli soldiers have either stood by or assisted settlers in committing violent acts against Palestinians. Second, the military law means that any Palestinian can be put in administrative detention without access to lawyer, not knowing what the charge is and how long they will be kept. Moreover, Defense for Children International (DCI) estimated in 2011 that more than 7,500 Palestinian children have been prosecuted in Israeli military courts since 2000. The report further concludes that ill treatment begins at the moment of arrest which often happens during night time military raids. The child is being abducted from the home with little or no information of where they are going. In most cases, parents are not allowed to visit their children, send them new clothes, and they get little information about their child’s well-being.

Military courts have no obligation to follow Israeli law or international legal obligations. Many reports from different sources have documented the use of ill-treatment, torture and a general failure to meet international standards in detention centers and prisons. When Israel is continuously being referred to as “the only democracy” in the Middle East, this is something we should keep in mind. For most people, abduction of children in the middle of the night and administrative detentions are a grave contradiction to concepts of “democracy.”

The question is, what more do the Palestinians have to negotiate with when more and more land is being confiscated by settlements including East Jerusalem? What should Palestinians negotiate with when not even their own president Mahmoud Abbas can leave Palestine without Israeli permission? There is something very wrong with the idea that when every peaceful Palestinian attempt at expression is being met with violence and immediate crackdown, the international community continues to stress Israel’s right to protect itself. Protect itself from what?

After three months in the West Bank, I am more than convinced that this is not a conflict nor a war–not between Arabs and Israelis and certainly not between Palestinians and Israelis. This is an occupation rooted in deep injustice with Israel as the aggressor. For every action there is a reaction. Simple as that. Just as much as Israel has the right to defend itself so should Palestinians too. Security is a mutual concept, and if the argument is that Israeli citizens have to be protected so should the Palestinians. Palestinians are the ones who have to endure Israel’s “security” measures, and Palestinians are the ones living under occupation while Gaza endures a siege. Israel is the one who is expanding settlements, building the wall, continuously demolishing Palestinian private property and confiscating more land.

Having walked under the EU sponsored metal net that is supposed to prevent rubbish, stones and liquid thrown by violent settlers from reaching targeted Palestinian pedestrians in Hebron’s Old City, I feel ashamed of being a part of an international community which allows this to happen. Of course it is easier to sponsor a net rather than coming to terms with the real problem. But Palestine doesn’t ask for aid, more NGOs, and certainly not another metal net, but simply for freedom and recognition.

A system is not static or superior to the individuals that give it power, but it is the organization of these individual capacities which create these systems. Diplomats, officials, politicians, soldiers and civilians who say they are only doing their job and are limited at doing otherwise are simply wrong.  Likewise the international community is wrong if it states it cannot do much. We’re all part of the society in which we function, and we all have a personal responsibility. We all have a possibility to do something, no matter how small that act may be.

An international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against buying into Israeli occupation should be the top priority for civil society around the world.  A boycott of Israel and Israeli products would also mean a new debate, where the international community allows Palestinians to raise their voice economically rather than us just hearing Benjamin Netanyahu’s so called economic peace plan.

As it is time for me to leave, I remember all the wonderful people I’ve met and the beautiful places and villages I visited in Palestine. Never in my life have I been surrounded by so much love and generosity as I have experienced here in Palestine.

Indeed Palestine was my home for three months because Palestinians made it my home. As I say goodbye to Palestine for now, memories of my time here put a smile on my face and tears run down my cheeks.

As we look forward to a new year and new possibilities, Palestine has been under occupation for 64 years . As Palestine welcomes us to share the year of 2012, we should all remember that freedom means nothing without the freedom, equal rights, and the international recognition of Palestinians.

Emma is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

On 17 December 2011, Palestinians gathered in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank for the Third National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions  (BDS) Conference. The event took place against the backdrop of continuous Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, and a growing resistance against injustice worldwide as demonstrated by the Arab revolutions and the occupy movements.  Just minutes away from the conference venue, 500 Jewish settlers live under escort of the Israeli military in a colonial enclave in the middle of old Hebron, terrorizing local Palestinian residents on a daily basis, with the stated intent of driving them from their homes. Hebron is also an important commercial center in Palestine, and thus was a fitting venue to hold the national BDS conference, after it was held in Nablus and Ramallah in previous years.

The day started early with about 500 Palestinians from all corners of the West Bank, as well as 48 Palestinians representing a diverse sector of civil society including trade unions, student and women groups, academics, cultural workers and NGOs, all uniting under the banner of BDS.

There was also a visible international presence as well as that of Israeli partners who have responded to the 2005 BDS call.  Notable was the absence of representation from Gaza, under an Israeli imposed siege, and refugees outside historic Palestinian, although their contribution to the movement was acknowledged.

The conference was an opportunity to take stock of the movement’s achievements worldwide, and to develop strategies to face the challenges ahead. The BDS movement witnessed impressive growth in 2011. Achievements include the withdrawal of German company Deutsche Bahn from construction of the A1 train line connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv; the forced closure of settlement company Ahava’s London flagship store and the loss of a $10 bn contract by French company Alstom in Saudi Arabia as a result of its role in the construction of the illegal Jerusalem Light Rail in occupied Jerusalem. 2011 was also the year when Israel’s foremost agricultural export company and a major BDS target – Agrexco – went bankrupt thanks in part to a sustained Europe-wide campaign.

The movement has now visibly spread beyond its traditional base of Palestine solidarity groups. The call for a military embargo of Israel received an enthusiastic response in Brazil and South Korea while in Australia, a nationwide debate involving government politicians and national media outlets ensued following the adoption of the movement’s principles by Marrickville Council in Sydney. A number of well-known artists have cancelled their scheduled performances in Israeli venues following appeals from BDS activists. Over a hundred Swiss artists vowed to boycott performances in Israel. Similarly, over 200 Swedish academics pledged to implement an academic boycott of Israel. The campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel (ACBI) has undoubtedly been one of the most visible, and successful campaigns this past year.

Governments and corporations are yet to end complicity with Israel’s policies of occupation, colonization and apartheid, as is clear from Israel’s continued violations of international law. Nevertheless, the costs for Israel are now undeniable, as BDS is proving to be the most effective tool to challenge Israel’s impunity. Governments and corporations can now expect strong and principled opposition from a truly global movement. Israel and its supporters in turn have recognized BDS as a “strategic threat” that could become an “existential threat”, yet unable to mount effective opposition to the movement.

The opening session of the conference covered these exciting developments. Dr. Wael Abu Yousef, representing the Coalition of National and Islamic forces, said that despite internal political divisions between the political parties, BDS is an unshakable point of consensus among them. Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the BDS movement, emphasized that while the movement is inspired by  the South African anti-apartheid struggle and other struggles for national liberation around the world, it is foremost a Palestinian movement, rooted in decades of nonviolent popular resistance to Zionism.

Michael Deas, the BNC coordinator in Europe, and Adam Horowitz, co-editor of popular blog Mondoweiss, spoke in the first panel about developments of the campaign in Europe and the US. There was much interest in the numerous successes the BDS movement has achieved, in addition to an element of surprise about the movement’s wide reach and successes. Questions asked by the audience reflected these sentiments. There was consensus amongst participants that these victories should be widely publicized as to promote awareness amongst Palestinian civil society about the strength and victories of the BDS movement.

The second panel addressed the possibilities for implementing a boycott of Israel locally and in the Arab world. Rania Elias, member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), said Israeli and international actors have been major players promoting Palestinian normalization with Israel, which runs counter to Palestinian aspirations and universal opposition to normalization within Palestinian civil society. The audience voiced their opposition to normalization, and demanded that the Palestinian Authority takes a strong stance to end all forms of normalization, and to hold those involved accountable.

Palestinian economist Ibrahim Shikaki provided a detailed critique of the current state of the Palestinian economy, dangerously developing to become subjugated to Israel in the long-term. He warned against attempts to replace a national resistance discourse with that of economic development.

In his analysis of Israeli dominance of the Palestinian consumer market, Salah Haniyyeh of the Economic Monitor noted that the Palestinian Authority lacks procurement legislation within its own government institutions to favor Palestinian and Arab products over Israeli ones. He also lamented the perception of Israeli products as being superior to Palestinian ones, calling on organized efforts to promote local produce.  Hanniyeh considered shortsighted the idea that the economic boycott of Israel should be halted for the risk it could pose to livelihoods of some families and instead emphasized the need for proactive strategies to protect workers while forwarding the national cause. Omar Assaf, representative of the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS), in turn condemned the existing Oslo framework as a major obstacle for social justice as it served to legitimize Israel’s security aspirations and economic dominance. The establishment in 2011 of PTUC-BDS represents a positive development in the consolidation of the workers’ efforts to isolate Israel, Assaf stated.

The hall awakened during the Q & A session with loud cheers in support of a number of enthusiastic interventions. There were suggestions for the development of a united front against normalization. Some expressed unhappiness about the role of foreign donors in turning Palestinians into consumers instead of promoting true economic independence. The loudest cheers however were reserved for the urgent need to bring the struggle back to the people, BDS being one such avenue, contrasting it to the role of the peace process in removing Palestinian popular agency.

Following lunch, participants split into groups for workshops on aspects of BDS relevant to the local context (students and youth, women’s organizations, civil society institutions, formal labor, and popular committees against the wall and settlements and international work). Each session agreed recommendations that were then presented to the conference at the end. Recommendations varied from strengthening the culture of boycott through awareness raising campaigns to developing mechanisms to actively oppose all levels of normalization.

It was evident throughout the day that there is huge enthusiasm and energy among all those attending to contribute more actively to the global BDS movement, and activate the boycott within their respective organizations and institutions.

Click here for more images

Twenty-three consecutive days of horrendous attacks on the Gaza Strip by the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) left more than 1500 Palestinians dead and many more injured.  Most of the victims were women, children and elderly people.

According to the IOF these attacks were intended to deter the Palestinian resistance. These attacks failed completely, we continue to resist.

Three years have passed since what the Israeli entity called “Operation Cast Lead” began on December 27, 2008.  The IOF claimed that they were targeting “Hamas”, but this wasn’t true.   Most of the targets were civilians in their own homes.

We, as a Palestinian people, assert that Hamas is an integral part of the national Palestinian liberation movement and that they are not terrorists as the Israeli propaganda depicts them. We think that each political or popular party has the right to resist the occupation with all available means.

Operation Cast Lead left more than 1500 Gazan dead; most of these victims were women, children, and elderly. Three years have passed, justice is still absent.

On the third anniversary of the Israeli war on Gaza, or the “Gaza Massacre”, we call on human rights NGOs and The International Court of Justice to break their shameful silence and take some “practical” steps along with the “usual “condemnations and statements”. The Israeli occupation will not be deterred from violating human rights unless you “act” by force or you use practical methods, not only “talk”.

In its aggression on Gaza, the IOF used internationally forbidden weapons against civilians and in heavily populated areas.  For example, white phosphorous was used against civilians in Gaza; it burned many people to death in their homes.  The IOF also used white phosphorous against an UNRWA school that had many civilians in it; they were trying to escape from the IOF’s shelling of their homes.  Further, the UNRWA headquarter building was also targeted. These are war crimes. International justice must be served equally to all human beings.  Therefore, we ask you to boycott the Israeli entity in every way.  Economic and cultural boycott are good examples.

We, Palestinians of Gaza, 3 years on from the 22-day long massacre in Israel’s operation ‘Cast Lead’, are calling on international civil society to make 2012 the year when solidarity with us in Palestine captures the spark of the revolutions around the Arab world and never looks back. On this anniversary we demand an international liberation movement that eventually leads to just that, liberation for us Palestinians from 63 years of brutal military occupation and ethnic cleansing that pours shame on any organisation or government claiming to endorse universal human rights.

We will never forget the hurt of 3 years ago, the criminal onslaught that we lived through, the blood of over 1400 murdered men, women and hundreds of children running through the streets of Gaza, between the rubble, soaking our beds and etched on our minds. We will never forget. For they are still dead, and thousands more are still maimed.^[1]

We will never forget the last 63 years during which our land, homes, olive groves, lemon trees and cherished way of life was taken away from us, while Israeli soldiers held our fathers’ faces in the sands, imprisoned them, or shot them in front of us. We will not forget the sickening cowardice of the international community that has allowed and enabled this ethnic cleansing of our people, subjecting us to Israel’s racist Zionist vision that defines us, the indigenous people of Palestine, as the undesired ‘ethnic group’ for the region.

The US continues to ‘reward’ Israel with 6 billion dollars of tax-payers money while the EU increases its trade and diplomatic relations. For the Israeli apartheid regime this translates as the green light to unleash the 4^th most powerful military on us to ‘do its worst’ against our civilian population, of which over half in Gaza are children and over 2 thirds are UN registered refugees.

In recent years, civil society and solidarity movements throughout the world have grown in their support for us, especially in 2011. As the world wakes up, the prospect of life without Israeli occupation and its system of race-based subjugation becomes more than a dream. We demand simply, human rights that anyone else would expect. This year, the first taste of liberation in the Western controlled Arab world arrived in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Many of those who took to the streets moved beyond their fear of being killed or tortured, facing up to the despotic, Western-backed regimes in the name of freedom for their families, communities and compatriots.

We will never forget them too, as we have lived much of our lives beyond this fear, our resilience against Israeli apartheid growing as the solidarity movements around the world grow. No longer under the boot of Western governments we urge the Arab street to do what the Israeli Apartheid Regime fears the most, to unite and build against them, the state that has violated more United Nations resolutions than any other. The siege breaking attempts into Gaza must continue, the second Free Gaza Flotilla exposed again the brutal and merciless edge of Israel’s hermetic siege.

In Europe and America the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS)^[2] movement is reaching the mainstream. Huge victories have included campaigns against waste and transport infrastructure firm Veolia who build transport routes on Israeli occupied lands.^[3] Inspired and supported by Nobel Prize winner and anti apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the University of Johannesburg ended its collaboration with Ben Gurion University in Israel.^[4] Other University campuses are pursuing boycott campaigns and major European Trade Unions have broken ties with Israeli Trade Unions. And a growing number of conscientious artists and singers are refusing to perform in Israel.

 All over Israeli internet sites and in government policy are attempts to deter the growing BDS movement,^[5] an international strategy that succeeded against a similarly well-armed, Western affiliated apartheid regime in South Africa.

The effect worldwide of the Gaza massacres 3 years ago was a catalyst for a huge rise in worldwide solidarity and action in support of Palestine, just as the South African Sharpeville massacre was for South African blacks in 1960^.

Our call this year will accept no compromise. We call upon all Palestine solidarity groups and all international civil society organizations to demand:

• An end to the siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of their exercise of democratic choice.
• The protection of civilian lives and property, as stipulated in International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law such as The Fourth Geneva Convention.
• The immediate release of all political prisoners.
• That Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip be immediately provided with financial and material support to cope with the immense hardship that they are experiencing
• An end to occupation, Apartheid and other war crimes with immediate reparations and compensation for all destruction carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza.

For us, the sacrifices for resisting have often meant imprisonment, torture, collective punishment and death. Outside, the risks are lower, but with great possibility. We call on you to Boycott Divest and Sanction, join the many International Trade Unions, Universities, Supermarkets and artists and writers who refuse to entertain Apartheid Israel. Speak out for Palestine, for Gaza, and crucially ACT. There has never been a time when mobilizations are gaining such support. 1994 was the year of South Africa when Apartheid was thrown into the dustbin of history; with your support we can make 2012 the year of free Palestine!

THE TIME IS NOW!

List of signatories:

General Union for Public Services Workers
General Union for Health Services Workers
University Teachers’ Association
Palestinian Congregation for Lawyers
General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
General Union for Agricultural Workers
Union of Women’s Work Committees
Union of Synergies—Women Unit
The One Democratic State Group
Arab Cultural Forum
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
Association of Al-Quds Bank for Culture and Info
Palestine Sailing Federation
Palestinian Association for Fishing and Maritime
Palestinian Women Committees
Progressive Students’ Union
Medical Relief Society
The General Society for Rehabilitation
General Union of Palestinian Women
Afaq Jadeeda Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Deir Al-Balah Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Maghazi Cultural Centre for Children
Al-Sahel Centre for Women and Youth
Ghassan Kanfani Kindergartens
Rachel Corrie Centre, Rafah
Rafah Olympia City Sisters
Al Awda Centre, Rafah
Al Awda Hospital, Jabaliya Camp
Ajyal Association, Gaza
General Union of Palestinian Syndicates
Al Karmel Centre, Nuseirat
Local Initiative, Beit Hanoun
Union of Health Work Committees
Red Crescent Society Gaza Strip
Beit Lahiya Cultural Centre
Al Awda Centre, Rafah

References

[1] http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?CategoryId=1&DocId=917

[2] http://www.bdsmovement.net/call

[3] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/veolia-takes-severe-blow-as-it-fails-to-win-485-million-pound-contract-in-west-london-8559

[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8404451/South-African-university-severs-ties-with-Israel.html

[5] http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/07/13/israel-anti-boycott-bill-stifles-expression

Palestine Freedom Riders

Inspired by the Freedom Rides of the US Civil Rights Movement Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler buses to occupied East Jerusalem

Groups of Palestinian Freedom Riders will attempt to board segregated settler buses heading to Jerusalem through the occupied West Bank this Tuesday November 15, in an act of civil disobedience that takes its inspiration from the US Civil Rights Movement Freedom Riders aim to challenge Israel’s apartheid policies, the ban on Palestinians’ access to Jerusalem, and the overall segregated reality created by a military and settler occupation that is the cornerstone of Israel’s colonial regime. While parallels exist between occupied Palestine and the segregated U.S. South in terms of the underlying racism and the humiliating treatment suffered then by blacks and now by Palestinians, there are also significant differences. In the 1960s U.S. South, black people had to sit in the back of the bus; in occupied Palestine, Palestinians are not even allowed ON the bus nor on the roads that the buses travel on, which are built on stolen Palestinian land.

In undertaking this action Palestinians do not seek the desegregation of settler buses, as the presence of these colonizers and the infrastructure that serves them is illegal and must be dismantled. As part of their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity, Palestinians demand the ability to be able to travel freely on their own roads, on their own land, including the right to travel to Jerusalem.

Palestinian activists also aim to expose two of the companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid policies and encourage global boycott of and divestment from them. The Israeli Egged and French Veolia bus companies operate dozens of segregated lines that run through the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. Both companies are also involved in the Jerusalem Light Rail, a train project that links illegal settlements in East Jerusalem to the western part of the city. By facilitating population transfer into occupied Palestinian territory, Egged and Veolia are actively and knowingly complicit in Israel’s settlement enterprise, which the International Court of Justice has determined to be a breach of international law, and particularly Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting an occupying power from transferring part of its population into occupied territory.

This Tuesday, Palestinian Freedom Riders will head to Jewish-only bus stops in the West Bank and attempt to board the settler buses. Palestinians understand that this act of nonviolent disobedience may result in violent attacks and even death at the hands of Israeli settlers that are to Israel what the Klu Klux Klan was to the Jim Crow South, or the authorities that protect them. Nonetheless, the Freedom Riders believe that this act of civil resistance is necessary to draw the attention of the world to the immorality of Israel’s occupation and apartheid system as well as to compel justice-loving people to take a stand and divest from Egged, Veolia, and all companies that enable and profit from it.

The Freedom Riders will be joined by activists from all around the world who will stage activities in their cities that highlight the systematic oppression of Palestinians and the need to divest from Egged and Veolia.

For inquiries send an email to palestinianfreedomriders@gmail.com

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Background

The buses that the Freedom Riders will be boarding are operated by the Egged, the largest Israeli public transportation company, and by the French transnational company Veolia. Both companies are complicit in Israel’s violations of international law due to their involvement in and profiting from Israeli’s illegal settlement infrastructure. Palestinian Freedom Riders endorse the call for boycotting both companies, as well as all others involved in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.^[1]

In July 2011, an Egged subsidiary won a public tender to run bus services in the Waterland region of the Netherlands, north of Amsterdam. The company makes money from trampling on the rights of Palestinians and has been a target of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society. The Freedom Riders call on the people of the Netherlands to sever all dealings with companies, like Egged, involved in human rights violations.

Veolia, has been a target of an international divestment campaign or running bus lines through the West Bank connecting settlements to Jerusalem and for its involvement in the Jerusalem Light Rail which connects Israel’s illegal settlements in and around occupied East Jerusalem to the western part of the city, thereby directly servicing the settlement enterprise.^[2]

Over 42 percent of Palestinian land in the West Bank has been taken over for the building of Jewish settlements and their associated regime^[3] (including the wall which was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004), depriving local communities of access to their water resources as well as agricultural lands. Settling Israelis in the occupied Palestinian territory constitutes a war crime according to the Fourth Geneva Convention^[4] and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.^[5]

The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute only 22 percent of the Palestinian homeland from which over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948 when the state of Israel was created. Since then, Palestinian refugees have been languishing in refugee camps and other places of exile, denied the right to return to their homes.

[1] Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, available at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/call.

[2] http://www.bigcampaign.org/veolia/

[3] B’tselem Report: “By Hook and By Crook, Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank,” July 2010; summary available at: http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook.

[4] See “Israel’s settlement policy is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza, highlighting the relevant articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention to support the determination that settlements are a war crime, at http://www.pchrgaza.org/Intifada/Settlements.conv.htm; see also “Demolitions, new settlements in East Jerusalem could amount to war crimes – UN expert,” UN News Centre, June 29, 2010, at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35175&Cr=Palestin&Cr1.

[5] Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prohibits “[t]he transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

On November 15th, Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler public transport headed to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Fifty years after the U.S. Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience. Organizers say that this ride to demand liberty, equality, and access to Jerusalem is the first of many to come. The Freedom Riders will be riding Egged and Veolia buses. Veolia runs many transportation services in local US communities, and is the target of many BDS campaigns. This provides a great opportunity for local Boycott or Dump Veolia campaigns to have a creative action that ties directly to Palestinian-led direct action.

Palestinian Freedom Riders are asking US activists to step up alongside them, taking to the streets (or buses!) to show our solidarity with these courageous and historic protests.

Learn more about separate and unequal transportation systems here.

The resources on this webpage outlines some easy ways to organize solidarity actions in your local community. If you have any questions or would like some support planning, please be in touch! Email: stefanie@jvp.org

Resources for Solidarity:

Click on image to download the toolkit for acting in solidarity with the November 2011 Freedom Rides campaign inspired by those of the Civil Rights Movement.

Click on image to download a high-res copy of the Freedom Rider Cartoon. Cartoon by Ethan Heitner.

Click on icon to listen to an mp3 recording of the Freedom Riders song. Lyrics are available in the toolkit.