The Palestinian call for BDS was launched in July, 2005. The movement continues to grow and strengthen. Minhaj Jeenah BDS South Africa

This week on the BDS roundup: Highlighting the spectacular growth and victories of the 7-year-old BDS movement; Palestinian civil society commends author Alice Walker for her refusal to have her book published by an Israeli publisher; Palestine solidarity activists protest pinkwashing at San Francisco LGBT International Film Festival; and boycott activists take to the roof of G4S headquarters to demand an end to cooperation with the Israeli government.

BDS, 7 years on: “Celebrating, reflecting and further mainstreaming”

On 9 July, activists and organizers with the Palestinian-led global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement commemorated 7 years of victories, strategies, growth and strength. Since the formal inception of the movement’s call in July 2005, BDS leadership says that “the struggle for the basic rights of the entire Palestinian people has taken a major leap during these last seven years” worldwide.

Indeed, as the Israeli government and its lobbies across the world attempt to undermine the BDS movement — while at the same time discrediting the strength and efficacy of the movement itself — there is much to celebrate and reflect upon as the boycott campaigns expand more into the mainstream toolkit of direct action against Israeli apartheid and colonialism.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) released a statement on the 7th anniversary of the BDS movement, 9 July, which reads in full:

Palestinian civil society commends author Alice Walker

PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, released a statement this week expressing support to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker. Recently, Walker publicly refused to have her book, The Color Purple, published by an Israeli publishing house, due to Israel’s policies of apartheid.

PACBI’s statement reads, in part:

[W]orld renowned, best-selling author Alice Walker set a new moral standard for international authors and cultural figures. By refusing to allow her famous work, The Color Purple, to be published in Israel due to its apartheid system, Walker told Israel and the world that she takes seriously her moral obligation not to be complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid. By reiterating her support for BDS in a concrete manner, she sent Palestinians a lucid message of love and true solidarity. Walker knows more than many that love towards the oppressed without supporting their struggle to end oppression amounts to futile charity when what they need is solidarity. Alice Walker’s moral courage and inspiring solidarity was greeted by Palestinians with deep appreciation. The most prominent Palestinian message of gratitude came from the General Union of Palestinian Writers, which issued a warm salute to Walker in a statement that said [in Arabic]: “The General Union of Palestinian Writers, while saluting this free intellectual and expressing its profound appreciation for her struggles against regimes of oppression and apartheid, from the darkest chapters of US modern history to South Africa of yesterday and Palestine today, confirms that human dignity is one and the same in all corners of the earth; it resists fragmentation, and it is the negation of color hierarchy. The courageous message sent by the activist novelist Walker to one of the arms of Zionist propaganda … removes any uncertainty regarding the kinship between Palestinian, South African, and African American grievances. The similarity between the systems of apartheid in these afflicted geographies is no longer an intellectual seduction or an academic exercise. Unifying local and global struggles against these regimes, with their Euro-American center, is no longer the obsession of dreamers … The global BDS movement against Israel … has become a reality and a space for resistance that has cost the colonial and apartheid regime in Israel its toughest losses. The positions of conscientious intellectuals worldwide, their effective contributions to this movement, and their noble defense of its achievement, form the virtue that separates the wheat of intellectuals from their chaff.”

PACBI’s statement continues:

Israel’s loss of the hearts and minds battle around the world, despite investing many millions of dollars in its largely abortive “Brand Israel” campaign is now recognized by leading voices within the Israeli establishment. … Alon Liel, a former director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, has recently expressed support for Alice Walker’s cultural boycott of Israel as well as for South Africa’s measure towards boycotting Israeli colonies’ products. Alice Walker once wrote, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Israel has for many years dwelled on an image of invincibility and unparalleled ruthlessness in dealing with its critics, particularly in the west. With its well-oiled, orchestrated campaigns of bullying and intimidation against critical voices in western colleges, arts communities, faith-based groups, trade unions and civil society at large, Israel and its lobby groups have succeeded in the past to instill fear of even debating Israel’s policies, and making these groups feel as if they don’t have any power. Today, thanks not only to the widely spreading BDS movement but also to Israel’s far-right fanaticism, war mongering and grave, persistent violations of international law, Israel’s shield of impunity is being shattered at a stunning rate, and people are reclaiming their power. It is gestures like Walker’s cultural boycott of Israel that are acting as valuable catalysts for countering Israel’s exceptionalism and questioning blind loyalty to it among western elites.

We salute Alice Walker!

Palestine solidarity activists protest pinkwashing at San Francisco LGBT International Film Festival

Activists protest pinkwashing outside the LGBT International Film Festival in San Francisco.

Pinkwashing is a term to describe Israel’s hasbara (propaganda) efforts to brand Israel as a “haven” for LGBT people while ignoring the human rights of Palestinians living under an apartheid system.

In their press release, the activists said that the reaction from the audience “was mixed” when they read alound from a scroll declaring Frameline’s director the Grand Pinkwasher:

Some people erupted in applause when the protesters revealed their “Stop Pinkwashing Israeli Apartheid” t-shirts, and there was a hearty round of applause when they finished reading the scroll. An equally loud chorus of boos followed. Filmmaker Yariv Mozer, whose appearance at the festival was funded by the Israeli consulate, followed the protesters out to argue about the value of the cultural boycott. One activist asked how he felt about the call of Palestinian queer organizations for Frameline to end its relationship with the consulate.

Mozer stated that he “disagreed” with it, because he is sponsored by the Israeli government. He added that Israel is “more liberal and democratic” than the West Bank and Gaza, and unabashedly remarked that the “regimes that are controlling the West Bank and Gaza are very primitive.”

Audio of the protest and the discussion with Mozer are available on Indybay.

Boycott activists take to the roof of G4S headquarters to demand an end to cooperation with the Israeli government

Activists occupy the roof of G4S’ headquarters in the UK. Indymedia UK

Using superglue and bicycle locks, the activists secured themselves to the roof and hung banners that admonished G4S’ profiting from Israel’s policies of apartheid and imprisonment of Palestinians.

In a press release posted on UK Indymedia, activists pointed out G4S’ complicity with Israel’s violations of international law and UN conventions, as the company provides equipment and prison administration services to Israeli jails.

The press release states:

G4S provides equipment to prisons inside Israel to which Palestinian political prisoners from occupied territory are transferred in violation of the Geneva Conventions, tortured and subjected to arbitrary detention. Under Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is forbidden to transfer Palestinian prisoners from occupied territories to prisons inside Israel. Despite this, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are unlawfully held in prisons inside Israel that are supplied by G4S. Palestinian civil society has condemned G4S’ complicity with Israeli violations of international law and called for action against the company. The company provides equipment to the Kishon and Moskobiyyeh detention facilities at which human rights organisations have documented systematic torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including child prisoners. A recent UK government backed delegation found that Israel is breaching at least six violations of the UN convention of the child in its treatment of child detainees. … G4S also provides equipment to Israeli in the West Bank that form part of the route of Israel’s illegal Wall and to illegal settlements. In the UK, G4S runs six private prisons at which 400 prisoners are forced to work 40 hours a week for as little as £2 a day.

The company also runs three immigration detention centres, where detainees have made repeated claims of abuse and assault. … One of the rooftop protesters, Tom Hayes from the Boycott Israel Network, said: “UK businesses should not be profiting from the detention and mistreatment of children.” “Brutal systems of discrimination such as Israeli Apartheid are maintained because companies like G4S are willing to do business with them, in total disregard of the human consequences and of international law. G4S is an example of a business that cynically views the practices of such regimes as good for business.” … Activists will picket the 12 July meeting of the West Midlands Police Authority. G4S is bidding for a £1.5bn contract to run Police services in the West Midlands and Surrey.