Growth in BDS.

Growth in BDS.

OMAR BARGHOUTI
PACBI has a new document, top of site: guidelines. See http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1045

See also http://www.bdsmovement.net/

Boycott is Israel’s weakest point. To be de-normalized – they hate that. It’s what Palestinians want – the overwhelming call of civil society.

BDS needs to be implemented with context, sensitivity, gradualism, and flexibility. The accusation that BDS is anti-Semitic is in itself anti-Semitic, insofar as it equates Israel with Judaism. BDS is a human rights campaign, led by Jews and Palestinians, based in solid precedent.

BDS is also an educational tool – not a campaign to do after education gets you there. It provoked debate in UK, moving things forward. Should we wait? Go tell Brand Israel to wait.

South Africa took 27 years, from the call for boycott in 1959.

Apartheid is not just a South African phenomenon. The UN defined it in 1973, and reaffirmed in 2002 as one of 11 recognized crimes against humanity.

Academic/cultural:

It is an institutional boycott, not on individuals. End institutional links with Israeli universities.
Bir Zeit was closed for four years, in the 1^st intifada – where’s the academic freedom?
The wall and settlements were designed at Israeli universities.

Weapons are designed at Tel Aviv U. So was the Doctrine of Disproportionate Force. (You can’t defeat Hezbollah, so destroy the Lebanese infrastructure, hurt the population, turn them against Hezbollah.)
No academic institution or association has taken a position against the occupation.

A petition to /ease restrictions/ on Palestinian students at checkpoints was singed by only 407 of 9,000 Israeli academics.

Dance companies, musicians, films are sent abroad as part of “Brand Israel,” to clean up tarnished image. Even projects critical of the state are funded by the state. For example, the film “Lemon Tree” was sent to the San Antonio Film Festival by the government. Films merely funded by the government are not boycotted, except if funded to tour, for festivals, etc.

Culture is often cast in the context of “co-existence.” But co-existence comes with equality, not apartheid.
Trader Joe’s carries three Israeli products we know of:

Dorot Frozen Herbs, Israeli Cous Cous, Pastures of Eden Israeli Feta.

We boycott the state, not the manifestation. You don’t boycott Sudanese products made in Darfur. 80% of the Israeli economy is somehow profiting from settlements.

Science:

Individual scientists can work together, but not through institutional sponsorships.
International institutions with Israeli participation: don’t boycott them, but pressure them to sever Israeli participation.

South Africa was a blanket boycott. This makes sense because we don’t wish to repeat McCarthyism. We don’t judge people’s views but their institutional loyalties.

Don’t go to Israel to educate people. It’s complicity. Put your education in the LA Times.

Sports boycott coming soon.

“Our South Africa moment has finally arrived. Let’s do it.”