Back to index of Nerve 14 - Summer 2009

Isolate Israeli apartheid

By Greg Dropkin

Israel’s ferocious massacre of 1400 people in Gaza, including 400 children, provoked world wide outrage and support for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. The BDS campaign began in 2005 when 170 Palestinian civil society organisations reacted to the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall in the West Bank and called for solidarity to compel Israel to comply with international law.

Now, BDS is being implemented. In February, dockers in Durban, South Africa, refused to offload an Israeli ship which sailed at the height of the Gaza invasion. In Liverpool, a North-West trade union conference on 18 April heard from Palestinian, Irish, and South African trade unionists, all calling for the boycott of Israeli goods and divestment of funds which sustain the military Occupation. A few days later the Scottish TUC annual conference swung decisively in favour of BDS.

On the streets, people remember Gaza. Outside Tesco in Clayton square, pensioners draped a banner between their motorised wheelchairs: “End the Siege of Gaza – No to ethnic cleansing – Speak out for the Palestinians”. We have leafleted shoppers, asking them to avoid goods labelled Israel or West Bank – i.e. produce grown on the illegal Israeli settlements dotted across the West Bank – or the brand name Agrexco – Carmel, and inviting them to sign a card to hand in at Customer Services. We have also written to the Manager.

The consumer boycott is one way of opening a conversation with the public, and sending signals back to Israel that the world is watching.

Until now, Israel has behaved with complete impunity, destroying Palestinian homes, seizing their land and farms, building the Wall deep inside the West Bank, surrounding Palestinian villages, appropriating the water supply, invading and re-invading Gaza, and continuing a strict military siege turning Gaza into one large prison.The British government won’t compel Israel to change course. But then, Thatcher never told South Africa that time was up for apartheid. That is why the militant union, community and political organisations battling inside South Africa called on the world to boycott the regime which was supported by transnationals and governments. Now Palestinians are calling on us.

To get involved, contact: Liverpool Friends of Palestine:
rosemary@lfop.fsnet.co.uk
www.liverpoolfriendsofpalestine.co.uk

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