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McGill University’s endorsement of the Palestinian civil society-initiated economic boycott of Israel is an important win for the movement. It proves beyond a doubt that BDS is and will remain the best vessel of international solidarity, until the Israeli occupation of Palestine comes to an end.

According to the McGill BDS Action Network, the motion to support BDS was brought before the Students’ Society of McGill University on 22 February at 3pm. Just a few hours later, the group announced the General Assembly’s passage of the resolution.

“With 512 votes for, 357 opposed, and 14 abstentions, the Motion Regarding Support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement passes,” McGill BDS Action Network wrote on Facebook.

Over cheers from the pro-BDS side, the speaker of the SSMU council Benjamin Dionne announced that the vote is not final until it is ratified by an online vote of the total membership.

SSMU president Kareem Ibrahim stated the ratification vote will take place within the week.

But it’s a long time coming for a school with an exceptionally powerful campus Israel machine—this vote was the third time in less than 2 years a BDS motion sat before the General Assembly. The other two were prolonged indefinitely before being discarded.

McGill University’s Jewish life is dominated by Hillel, Chabad and Israel on Campus. As a 15 February oped in The McGill Daily by the group Nit In Aundzer Nomen (Not In Our Name in Yiddish) makes clear, the climate for anti-occupation activists at McGill is tense.

“Campus rhetoric consistently pairs anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, preventing Jewish students from speaking out comfortably against Israel’s state policies for fear of being labelled a “self-hating Jew,” the group writes.

Hillel and Chabad routinely encourage Jewish students to uncritically embrace (and love) Israel. These organizations are notoriously silent on Israel’s repressive policies toward Palestinians—in fact, since 2014, Hillel and AIPAC have been officially joined as a pro-Israel mouthpiece.

But a tide change is happening.

“The discourse on campus has conflated Jews of all backgrounds with a nationalistic, militaristic, and racist government agenda, and as Jewish students who believe in justice, we feel a particular responsibility to speak out in support of the Palestinian people,” writes Nit In Aundzer Nomen.

The BDS movement is giving voice to Jews everywhere who cannot square the social justice tenets of Judaism with Israel’s 49 year occupation of Palestine. BDS “has given us a way to mobilize from a distinctly Jewish perspective in a way that does not contradict our values. In doing so, we are also actively resisting the use of our Jewish identities as a justification for stripping millions of people of their basic rights,” the group adds.

The specific motion at McGill calls for the university’s immediate disinvestment from four companies in particular that maintain direct complicity in the Israeli occupation: G4S Security Solutions, L-3 Communications Inc., Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank and Re/Max.

Whether the company provides security apparatuses to Israeli military checkpoints or prisons (G4S) or whitewashes the crimes of occupation by advertising homes in the occupied West Bank (Re/Max), the successes of BDS illustrate that non-violent resistance to the occupation is a profoundly powerful tool.

Debate over the BDS motion lasted over two hours in the packed SSMU room.

“The lands in the West Bank are being appropriated, resources are being appropriated for Israeli settlers,” said Palestinian student Muhammad Anani. He implored fellow students to vote for the resolution, appealing to the overarching human rights issue posed by occupation. “By investing in the companies McGill is invested in, we are complicit, and as a Palestinian student, I refuse this.”

“If you are pro-Palestinian, vote yes,” added Anani. “If you don’t want Israel to be involved in fucked-up human rights violations, vote yes.”

But McGill’s passage of a BDS resolution comes at a very interesting time of institutional anxiety over BDS. Canada’s parliament only days before passed a motion outlawing BDS. On Twitter, Prime minster Justin Trudeau showed his disdain writing “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses. As a [McGill University] alum, I’m disappointed. #EnoughIsEnough.”

And Palestine-solidarity has recently been attacked at another prestigious institution to the south. Just last week the law firm Milbank LLC, a major donor to Harvard Law School’s campus activity groups, rescinded a $250,000 grant to student activities over a panel held by the school’s pro-Palestine group.

And a McCarthyist, anti-BDS motion is winding its way through the New York State legislatures.

With all the gyrating around BDS, among supporters and denouncers, it seems the economic boycott of Israel is working.

BDS is forcing Jews to have uncomfortable conversations among ourselves and inspiring an entire generation that says Israel is not an expression of Judaism.

BDS is causing a crisis among the staunch institutional Israel supporters. When governments start outlawing BDS freedom of speech, they are absolutely on the ropes.

When universities like McGill, after multiple failed attempts finally pass a motion to support it, people are living into the boycott.

And don’t even get me started on Netanyahu; he is having a conniption over BDS. More proof that it is working.

Sign up here: http://bdsmovement.net/