The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is deeply concerned by the verdict of Judge Oded Gershon that absolved Israel’s military and state of the 2003 murder of American ISM activist Rachel Corrie. Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the American administration stating that the Israeli military investigation had not been “thorough, credible and transparent” and the Israeli government withholding key video and audio evidence, Judge Gershon found no fault in the investigation or in the conclusion that the military and state were not responsible for Rachel’s death. Judge Gershon ruled that Rachel was to blame for her own murder and classifies her non-violent attempt to prevent war crimes as proof that Rachel was not a “thinking person”.
By disregarding international law and granting Israeli war criminals impunity Judge Gershon’s verdict exemplifies the fact that Israel’s legal system cannot be trusted to administer justice according to international standards.The ISM calls on the international community to hold Israel accountable by supporting the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and continuing to join the Palestinian struggle in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Describing the situation in Gaza two days before she was killed, Rachel said, “I’m witnessing the systematic destruction of a people’s ability to survive. It’s horrifying.” Rachel’s analysis holds true today, confirmed by the United Nations a day before this ruling, which reported that Gaza would not be “liveable” by 2020 barring urgent action.
The verdict is a green light for Israeli soldiers to use lethal force against human rights defenders and puts Palestinian and International human rights defenders in mortal danger.
This will not deter us. As long as our Palestinian sisters and brothers want our presence, the ISM will continue to find ways to break Israel’s siege, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. As Rachel’s mother Cindy said, “There were children behind the walls of the home Rachel was trying to protect…We should have all been there.”
Judge Gershon’s verdict is a travesty of justice but it is not exceptional. As a rule the Israeli legal system provides Israeli soldiers impunity to commit murder. The only Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter since the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000 was Taysir Hayb, a Bedouin citizen of Israel for shooting British ISM volunteer Tom Hurndall in the back of the head with a sniper rifle as Tom was carrying a child to safety. At least 6,444 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces in this period, with no justice for them or their families.
Palestinians in Gaza support the Corrie family on the eve of the verdict in their lawsuit against Israel over its 2003 killing of their daughter Rachel, as well as divestment from Caterpillar and the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
19 August 2012 | Besieged Gaza, occupied Palestine
We call on the European Union to challenge and not embrace Israel’s incessant land expropriation and racist subjugation against the Palestinian people. The European Union’s own reports document and supposedly lament Israel’s apartheid policies, yet continues to pursue policies that legitimize them, such as the scandalous upgrade of trade relations currently being put forward.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said that the regime you wish to do even more business with is worse than South African Apartheid, having been to the West Bank many times. But you turn your eyes and ears away from him. So does former ANC MP Ronnie Kassrils and countless other South Africans who have been to see the physical and psychological matrix of control Israel has mounted against us.
You are very well aware of what is happening to us. In terms of the brutal and illegal colonisation of the West Bank your own report from the Office of the European Union Representative (EUREP) in Jerusalem of July 2011 stated
“…large Jewish populations have settled into the occupied territory, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. In 1972 there were 1,200 settlers which have grown to 310,000 settlers today in 124 settlements and 100 so called outposts in Area C. The Israeli government subsidizes and provides incentives including funding for housing, education and infrastructure such as special roads and water connection… The municipal area of settlements encompasses 9.3% of the West Bank Territory. However, due to the extensive network of settler roads and restrictions on Palestinians accessing their own land, the whole structure of the Israeli settlements dominate more than 40% of the West Bank.”
This is enforced Apartheid Segregation. Perhaps you shy away from using the words,”Ethnic Cleansing”, despite categorical evidence you yourselves present: “Prior to the Israeli occupation in 1967 the Palestinian population of the Jordan valley was estimated at between 200,000 and 320,000. As of 2009 the population is approximately 56,000…” This is ethnic cleansing in its most explicit form.
“Settlements of all kinds – formal or informal outposts – are illegal under international law.” You explain in the report.
They violate the prohibition against transfer of population of the occupying power to the occupied territory (art 49 IVGC), the prohibition against appropriation of private civilian property without military necessity (Regulation 46 Hague Regulations 1907) Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention names deportations and transfers under article 49 as grave breaches of International Humanitarian Law.
So why does the EU make detailed reports on Israel committing self-evident crimes against humanity – vast theft of our land, using bulldozers, tanks and army to violently push our people out? One wonders as to why such reports are written? We fail to understand how, in spite of your own findings, you decide to reward the aggressor!
The main legal basis through which you conduct EU relations between Israel and the European Union is an “association agreement” dating from 2000. In article 2, respect for human rights is described as an “essential element” of the accord, stating that, “relations shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles which must guide internal and international policy”.
More than 15,000 illegal Israeli Jewish settlers were added last year making the current number of “illegal settlers” 650,000. Yet still you propose a Palestinian state based on the Bantustans we have been herded into, without rights to water, to real movement, to airspace, sea space and certainly no rights to the 6 million refugees around the world who European countries have continually turned their backs on.
Notably, this trade upgrade was originally frozen when the Israeli Army, the fourth most armed in the world, committed atrocities over the new year of 2009 that you, the EU, couldn’t even ignore, the Gaza Bloodbath, the 3 week Israeli operation that killed over 1400 (over 340 children) injuring over 5300, the vast majority civilians. Palestinians of Gaza are still recovering from that, though most of them never will. For most of them lost a friend or relative and the trauma continues to manifest itself in all the generations, especially the youngest.
Since the EU feels ready to reward Israel with an upgrade, does it assume that justice was brought to the perpetrators of the bloodbath Palestinian civilians suffered in Gaza, and they now have their human rights fully respected by Israel?
Seeing as you do not read your own reports perhaps we can fill you in. Despite the wide scale crop contamination, a spike in child deformities and cancers from the incessant and illegal white phosphorous and chemical weapons showered on Palestinians of Gaza; despite our destroyed roads and sewage system, despite the United Nations accusing Israel of, ‘probable war crimes and crimes against humanity’, NO international criminal court hearings, NO sanctions, NO expectation of compensation from Israel for the 20,000 houses, hospitals, schools, shops, offices, damaged or destroyed, and NO effective easing of the now 5 year medieval blockade that has left much of the infrastructure in ruins due to limits on concrete, electrical and building materials. Israel right now is collectively punishing all of Gaza, contravening article 33 of the Geneva Conventions, supplementing nicely its record number of United Nation Resolution violations.
Europe’s aid to Palestinians will not free them from political oppression. Charity has never helped free a colonized population. The funding of weapons to Israel completely negates it. 11 of the top 20 weapons dealers to Israel are EU member states. Germany actually sold 2 dolphin submarines while Israel was bombarding Lebanon in July 2006, killing over a thousand people. In the first three months of 2008 alone, Britain rubberstamped timely military exports of almost £20 million to Israel giving it a suitable arsenal to blow us up with a few months later. Among the Gaza debris of the 2009 Cast Lead attacks, Amnesty International found, “made in France” labels on components used in Hellfire missiles. We hope the money was good for Europe’s biggest arms exporter to Israel. EU Scientific collaboration and investment in Israel is even more rewarding.
And it comes full circle when it was revealed that €11 million worth of damage was caused to EU financed infrastructure in Gaza during these bombings. Prior to that, from August 2001 to November 2008, Israeli attacks on the occupied territories inflicted damage worth more than €44 million on EU provided aid. As Mustafa Barghouti asked European Parliamentarians, “Are EU taxpayers really happy to reconstruct what US taxpayers have paid to destroy?”
We’re not surprised that an EU diplomat found it hard to hide this epic EU hypocrisy of the new trade deal, “I was struck by the fact that a whole range of relations was offered to Israel, at the request of Israel, as if nothing is happening on the ground… We should be using [Tuesday’s] dialogue to get what we want, which is Israel’s compliance with its obligations under international law.”
Europe has historically accepted Israel trampling all over Palestinians, from the beginning in 1948. With precision brutality we have been uprooted, humiliated at checkpoints, imprisoned without charge, denied our heritage and religious sites, denied our freedom to move and see family members, denied water and our livelihoods, our arable land, our access to the sea, our dreams of visiting other countries. And Europe has merely watched. And Israel has carried on. Because it knows Europe makes noises but it does not stand up to Israel.
It is time to stand up!
Stand up for basic human rights. Is it too much to ask you to follow basic expectations of human rights in your dealings with Israel? Stand up against its policies of occupation, colonization and apartheid? When justice eventually comes and we can live as equals, not under an apartheid system that denies us our rights and our homes, people will look back on this period aghast that such collective punishment of an entire population, the majority children, was allowed to go on for so long, aided and abetted by the European Union. Stand up now, end this trade agreement with Israel and remember when and why Europeans finally put human rights first by sanctioning the White Afrikaaner regime. Legitimising Apartheid was wrong then, and it is wrong now.
30 July 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On July 26, youth activists in Nablus, in connection with the Tanweer Center for Enlightenment and Dar Al Qandeel association for arts and culture, kicked off a campaign to encourage residents of Nablus to boycott Israeli products this Ramadan and beyond.
Because people tend to purchase more products during Ramadan, the activists resolved that the month would be a perfect time to encourage the masses to resist Israeli occupation through boycott.
Activists met on Monday, July 23 to discuss what their new campaign would look like. It was decided that the campaign would focus first on the old city of Nablus, a densley populated area that acts as the commercial center. The discussion included deliberation over how best to encourage people to begin boycotting in Ramadan, and to continue afterwards.
The Tanweer Center provided Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) newspapers, as well as Ramadan calendars with a call for boycott displayed on them. The campaign has already planned 3 days of presence in the old city, followed by a meeting for reflection before continuing to other areas of Nablus.
Over 25 activists participated in the first day of canvassing, with largely positive feedback from their interactions with residents. Many of the old city’s residents were unaware of the growing campaign and interested in participating in a further form of resistance.
Alaa Abu Sah, a member of Dar Al Qandeel, said that the new campaign in Nablus is part of a larger effort. Tanweer is one of 20 centers participating this Ramadan, and the intentions reach beyond boycotting. Abu Sah believes that BDS will contribute to development in Palestine, strengthening economic and cultural aspects in Palestine.
In 2005, Palestinian Civil Society Organizations called for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194
More can be read about the BDS Movement and the original call here.
Seven years after the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel was launched, the global BDS campaign has become stronger, more widespread, more effective and certainly more diverse than ever—a true cause for celebration by all those groups and conscientious citizens of the world who contributed to this success. However, Israel’s intensifying violations of international law and basic Palestinian rights, the direct threat Israel poses to the freedom of peoples across the region, and the impunity that Israel still enjoys are cause for reflection and the continuous fine-tuning of our strategies to further spread BDS and further isolate Israel as a world pariah, just as South Africa was under apartheid.
Thanks to the BDS movement, the struggle for the basic rights of the entire Palestinian people has taken a major leap during these last seven years, reaching wide audiences and achieving concrete achievements in major European countries, South Africa, Latin America, India, the Arab world, Australia, New Zealand and even North America. Following on from a similar round up published to mark five years of BDS, the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the broad Palestinian civil society coalition, has put together the following selection of highlights gives a taste of the spectacular growth of BDS over the last two years.
The global reach of the BDS movement is maybe best highlighted by this year’s edition of the BDS Global Day of Action which took place in 23 countries and the fact that the 8th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) was organized this year on campuses in 202 cities across the world, causing near panic in the Israeli public diplomacy ministry, which scrambled 100 envoys to counter IAW around the world.
Popular consumer boycotts of Israeli products and campaigns against companies that export and sell Israeli products, particularly those implicated in Israel’s illegal colonies in the occupied Palestinian territory, have not only raised awareness among ordinary citizens in countless cities across the world but led to significant damage to complicit Israeli companies:
– Agrexco, Israel’s former largest exporter of agricultural produce, entered liquidation towards the end of 2011, following a campaign of blockades, demonstrations, lobbying of supermarkets and governments, popular boycotts and legal action in more than 13 countries across Europe. The campaign against the company was a major factor behind the lack of investors’ interest to salvage it.
– The largest Co-operative in Europe, the Co-Operative Group in the UK, introduced a policy to end trade with companies that source products from Israel’s illegal settlements, following a determined campaign by Co-Op members. Campaigners are working to pressure other supermarkets to adopt a similarly comprehensive position. Many supermarkets across Europe already claim not to sell produce from illegal settlements.
– A sustained campaign against Ahava, the Israeli cosmetics company situated in an illegal Israeli colony, forced the company to close its flagship London store and retailers in the UK, Norway, Japan and Canada to announce boycotts of the company.
Inspired by the integral role that Israeli academic institutions play in developing the knowledge and technology behind Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid, and planning and justifying Israel’s worst crimes, academic boycott campaigns have spread to campuses across the world:
– Campaigns against EU-funded collaboration with private Israeli companies and Israeli universities have sprung up at campuses across Europe in response to a call from Palestinian academics and civil society.
– Academic unions in the UK and Canada have voted to support various academic boycott campaign initiatives. There are also active academic boycott campaigns in India, the US, South Africa, Ireland, Chile, Brazil, Pakistan, and in many European countries.
Rapidly losing support around the world and recently again voted one of the most negatively viewed countries in the world, Israel’s attempts to whitewash its system of colonization, occupation and apartheid using culture is increasingly thwarted by a highly visible cultural boycott:
– Scores of artists — especially musicians and filmmakers — and writers have refused to perform in Israel or cancelled scheduled performances following pressure from the BDS movement including Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc Godard, Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron, Carlos Santana, Devendra Banhart, Faithless, the Pixies, Cassandra Wilson, Cat Power, Zakir Hussain.
– Many artists and other cultural figures now speak publicly of their support for BDS: Roger Waters, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein, John Berger, Judith Butler, Etienne Balibar, Ken Loach, Arundhati Roy, Angela Davis, Sarah Schulman, among others.
– Israeli artists who accept funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are required to sign a contract committing them to be part of Israel’s cultural public relations offensive. Protests and campaigns against state-backed performances — such as those by the Batsheva dance company, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Habima theater, and the Jerusalem Quartet — are now common place in Europe and North America, forcing some cultural venues to defend or retract their decision to host representatives of Israel and persuading others not to invite state-backed Israeli artists at all.
– US basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar cancelled a scheduled public visit to Israel.
Corporations, both Israeli and international, play a key role in facilitating Israeli apartheid. Divestment campaigns are raising the price of corporate complicity with Israeli violations of international law and changing corporate attitudes towards doing business with Israel:
– French multinational Veolia has been targeted since November 2008 due its provision of infrastructure services to illegal settlements, including the Jerusalem Light Rail. Local municipalities across Europe and Australia have decided not to award Veolia contracts worth at least $14 billion following BDS campaigns. An increasing number of municipal authorities have implemented policies excluding Veolia from bidding on local contracts. Several European banks have divested from the company as well. Veolia has been forced to admit the damage the BDS campaign has caused it and subsequently announced plans to withdraw from some illegal Israeli projects.
– Several European banks have also divested from Alstom, one of Veolia’s partners in the Jerusalem Light Rail. Alstom lost a $10 billion contract to build the second phase of the Saudi Haramain Railway project following a concerted campaign of pressure.
– The European Parliament elected not to renew a contract with G4S following action by Palestine solidarity groups. G4S is a private security company that Palestinian civil society has called for action against over its contract with the Israeli Prison Service and its resulting complicity with the detention of Palestinian political prisoners.
– The Norwegian government pension fund and 12 other European finance institutions have excluded Elbit Systems from their portfolios. Elbit is an Israeli military company involved in constructing Israel’s illegal wall.
Responding to ever-increasing public anger with Israel’s occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, a number of governments have started to introduce sanctions against Israel:
– Turkey and Norway have both announced decisions to suspend military relations with Israel and Turkey is pursuing legal action against Israel over its killing of 9 Turkish citizens on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010. Bolivia, Venezuela, Qatar, Mauritania and several other countries also took action in response to the attack.
– A call from Palestinian civil society for a comprehensive military embargo on Israel last July was supported by Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and civil society groups around the world representing millions of people.
In the trade union movement, labor-led sanctions and BDS initiatives have become the leading form of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle:
– BDS principles and tactics have been formally endorsed by national trade union federations in South Africa, UK, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the Basque Country, Brazil and other countries across Latin America, in addition to scores of national and local unions. Africa’s largest trade union federation, ITUC-Africa – representing 15 million workers from 56 African trade union federations has endorsed BDS and the European Trade Union Congress is currently taking action against produce from illegal Israeli settlements.
– Some major trade unions, particularly in Europe, are taking steps to sever links with the Histadrut, the colonial Israeli trade union entity that has always played a key role in Israel’s system of oppression over the Palestinian people. Most recently, Unison, the UK’s second largest trade union with 1.3 million members, voted to reaffirm its position of suspended relations with the Histadrut.
Following a call for concrete solidarity from Palestinian Christians entitled Kairos Palestine, churches around the world have adopted BDS-related actions:
– In the US, the Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC) divested $900,000 in shares of Caterpillar, targeted over its sale of bulldozers to Israel that are used to violate Palestinian rights. The worldwide United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church in the US have both called on their members to boycott produce from illegal Israeli settlements.
– In the UK, the Methodist Church and the Quakers in Britain recently called on the UK government to ban trade in products from illegal Israeli settlements.
At university campuses across the world, the student movement in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle continues to rapidly emerge:
– In North America, students are developing sophisticated and widely supported campus divestment initiatives, with student unions in Regina and Carleton in Canada and National Movímíento Estudíantíl Chícan@ de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A), the largest association of Latin@ youth in the US, and the student government at University of Massachusetts-Boston voting to support divestment and other BDS initiatives. The first student-led BDS U.S. national conference was held at the University of Pennsylvania earlier this year following a successful national student conference at Columbia University last year.
– BDS student groups are growing across Europe. In the UK the National Union of Students has endorsed student campaigns that have succeeded in ending relationships between universities and Ahava and Eden Springs. Edinburgh University Student Association voted to end its contract with G4S.
With the eruption of peoples’ upheavals across the Arab world, or what came to be known as the Arab Spring, massive solidarity with Palestinian rights in Arab countries is increasingly being channeled in effective BDS campaigns, especially in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and Kuwait.
Against the backdrop of continued success and the reactions from Israel, we look forward to working with trade unions, NGOs, faith groups, solidarity organizations, people’s movements and people of conscience all over the world to continue to spread BDS as an effective and morally compelling tool in support of the Palestinian struggle for comprehensive rights. Israel realizes it and so do we: BDS is spreading and having a significant impact on Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid; it is time to push even further into the mainstream to entrench Israel’s pariah status. Only thus can Palestinians regain their rights and exercise self-determination, and without that there can never be a just and sustainable peace in the entire region.
