![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/palestine_bds.jpg\")
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\n\tWe’re publishing on our web page the balance sheet made by Palestinian\u00a0BDS\u00a0National Committee on their 7 years campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to stop Israeli aggression to Palestinian people. IWL-FI supports BDS campaign and the struggle of Palestinians to be free from Israeli oppression and the end of the state of Israel.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n\tOccupied Palestine, 9 July 2012 – Seven years after the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel was launched, the global\u00a0BDS\u00a0campaign 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\u00a0BDS\u00a0and further isolate Israel as a world pariah, just as South Africa was under apartheid.<\/p>\n \n\tThanks to the\u00a0BDS\u00a0movement, 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\u00a0round up published to mark five years of\u00a0BDS, the\u00a0Palestinian\u00a0BDS\u00a0National Committee, the broad Palestinian civil society coalition, has put together the following selection of highlights gives a taste of the spectacular growth of\u00a0BDS\u00a0over the last two years.<\/p>\n \n\t{module Propaganda 30 anos}The global reach of the\u00a0BDS\u00a0movement is maybe best highlighted by this year’s edition of the BDS\u00a0Global Day of Action which\u00a0took place in 23 countries\u00a0and the fact that the \u00a08th\u00a0annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) was organized this year on campuses in\u00a0202 cities across the world, causing near panic in the Israeli public diplomacy ministry, which scrambled\u00a0100 envoys\u00a0to counter IAW around the world.<\/p>\n \n\tPopular\u00a0consumer boycotts<\/strong>\u00a0of 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:<\/p>\n \n\t– Agrexco, Israel’s former largest exporter of agricultural produce,\u00a0entered liquidation\u00a0towards 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\u00a0against the company was a major factor behind the lack of investors’ interest to salvage it.<\/p>\n \n\t– The largest Co-operative in Europe, the Co-Operative Group in the UK,\u00a0introduced a policy\u00a0to 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\u00a0comprehensive position.\u00a0 Many supermarkets across Europe already claim not to sell produce from illegal settlements.<\/p>\n \n\t– A sustained campaign against Ahava, the Israeli cosmetics company situated in an illegal Israeli colony, forced the company to\u00a0close its flagship London store\u00a0and retailers in the\u00a0UK,\u00a0Norway, Japan\u00a0and\u00a0Canada\u00a0to announce boycotts of the company.<\/p>\n \n\tInspired 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,\u00a0academic boycott<\/strong>\u00a0campaigns have spread to campuses across the world:<\/p>\n \n\t– Setting a worldwide precedent for the academic boycott of Israel,\u00a0the University of Johannesburg severed ties with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University\u00a0in 2011, following a campaign backed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and over 400 South African academics.<\/p>\n \n\t– Campaigns against EU-funded collaboration with private Israeli companies and Israeli universities have sprung up at campuses across Europe in response to a\u00a0call from Palestinian academics and civil society.<\/p>\n \n\t– Academic unions in the\u00a0UK\u00a0and\u00a0Canada\u00a0have voted to support various academic boycott campaign initiatives. There are also active academic boycott campaigns in\u00a0India, the US, South Africa, Ireland, Chile, Brazil, Pakistan, and in many European countries.<\/p>\n \n\tRapidly losing support around the world and recently again voted one of the\u00a0most 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\u00a0cultural boycott:<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t–\u00a0Scores of artists\u00a0— especially musicians and filmmakers — and writers have refused to perform in Israel or cancelled scheduled performances following pressure from the\u00a0BDSmovement 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.<\/p>\n \n\t– Many artists and other cultural figures now speak publicly of their support for\u00a0BDS:\u00a0Roger Waters,\u00a0Alice Walker, Naomi Klein, John Berger, Judith Butler, Etienne Balibar, Ken Loach, Arundhati Roy, Angela Davis, Sarah Schulman, among others.<\/p>\n \n\t– Israeli artists who accept funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are required to\u00a0sign a contract\u00a0committing 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.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the related field of\u00a0sports boycott<\/strong>:<\/p>\n \n\t– The inspiring\u00a093 day hunger strike\u00a0by imprisoned Palestinian national football team player Mahmoud Sarsak, who was detained and subsequently held without trial by Israel in 2009 while attempting to leave Gaza to play an international match was met with\u00a0calls for his release by footballing superstars\u00a0and FIFA, the international football federation. Sports clubs in Gaza and footballing legend Eric Cantona have criticized the European football association for\u00a0awarding Israel the right to host the 2013 under-21 football tournament.<\/p>\n \n\t–\u00a0The Egypt Football Association announced that its national teams would no longer wear Adidas kit\u00a0over the company’s\u00a0sponsorship of an Israeli marathon that violates international law\u00a0and whitewashes Israel’s illegal occupation of Jerusalem. Calls for boycotting Adidas were issued by the Council of Arab Sports Ministers and by the Palestinian\u00a0BDS\u00a0National Committee (BNC).<\/p>\n \n\t– US basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar\u00a0cancelled\u00a0a scheduled public visit to Israel.<\/p>\n \n\tCorporations, both Israeli and international, play a key role in facilitating Israeli apartheid. Divestment\u00a0<\/strong>campaigns are raising the price of corporate complicity with Israeli violations of international law and changing corporate attitudes towards doing business with Israel:<\/p>\n \n\t– French multinational Veolia has been targeted since November 2008 due its\u00a0provision of infrastructure services to illegal settlements,<\/a>\u00a0including the Jerusalem Light Rail. Local municipalities across Europe and Australia have decided not to award Veolia contracts\u00a0worth at least $14 billion<\/a>\u00a0following\u00a0BDS\u00a0campaigns. An increasing number of municipal authorities have implemented policies excluding Veolia from bidding on local contracts. Several European\u00a0banks have divested<\/a>\u00a0from the company as well. Veolia has been forced to admit the damage the\u00a0BDScampaign has caused it and subsequently announced plans to withdraw from some illegal Israeli projects.<\/p>\n \n\t– Several European banks have\u00a0also divested from Alstom<\/a>, one of Veolia’s partners in the Jerusalem Light Rail. Alstom\u00a0lost a $10 billion contract<\/a>\u00a0to build the second phase of the Saudi Haramain Railway project following a concerted campaign of pressure.<\/p>\n \n\t– Following a concerted campaign in the US, Caterpillar was\u00a0removed<\/a>\u00a0from MSCI-ESG, an influential ethical investment index over the use of its bulldozers and equipment to destroy Palestinian homes. This led to\u00a0TIAA-CREF, the US pension fund giant targeted by a wide US civil society coalition, removing the company from its Social Choice Funds<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\t– The European Parliament\u00a0elected not to renew a contract with G4S<\/a>\u00a0following action by Palestine solidarity groups. G4S is a private security company that Palestinian civil society has\u00a0called for action<\/a>\u00a0against over its contract with the Israeli Prison Service and its resulting complicity with the detention of Palestinian political prisoners.<\/p>\n \n\t– The Norwegian government pension fund and 12 other European finance institutions haveexcluded Elbit Systems<\/a>\u00a0from their portfolios. Elbit is an Israeli military company involved in constructing Israel’s illegal wall.<\/p>\n \n\tResponding to ever-increasing public anger with Israel’s occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, a number of governments have started to introduce\u00a0sanctions\u00a0<\/strong>against Israel:<\/p>\n \n\t–\u00a0Turkey<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Norway<\/a>\u00a0have 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.<\/p>\n \n\t– A call from Palestinian civil society\u00a0for a comprehensive military embargo on Israel<\/a>\u00a0last July was supported by Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams and Adolfo P\u00e9rez Esquivel and civil society groups around the world representing millions of people.<\/p>\n \n\tThe campaign to\u00a0Stop the JNF<\/a>\u00a0has gone from strength to strength, forcing the leaders of all of the major UK political parties, including Prime Minister David Cameron, to\u00a0end their patronage of the organization<\/a>, successfully persuading the authorities in the\u00a0Swiss town of Geneva to disassociate the city from the JNF<\/a>\u00a0and winning support of numerous mainstream organizations.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the\u00a0trade union<\/strong>\u00a0movement, labor-led sanctions and\u00a0BDS\u00a0initiatives have become the leading form of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle:<\/p>\n \n\t–\u00a0BDS\u00a0principles and tactics have been\u00a0formally endorsed<\/a>\u00a0by 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.\u00a0Africa’s largest trade union federation, ITUC-Africa<\/a>\u00a0– representing 15 million workers from 56 African trade union federations has endorsed\u00a0BDS\u00a0and the European Trade Union Congress is currently taking action against produce from illegal Israeli settlements.<\/p>\n \n\t– Trade unions are initiating\u00a0concrete campaigns and actions<\/a>, such as\u00a0the heroic blockades of Israeli ships<\/a>\u00a0by dockworkers in South Africa, Sweden, and California, and the campaigns by the London region of the\u00a0UK Rail, Maritime and Transport union against Alstom<\/a>, due to its complicity with an illegal occupation infrastructure project, and by the\u00a0Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees (Fagforbundet) against Ahava<\/a>\u00a0and other companies complicit with Israeli violations of international law.<\/p>\n \n\t– 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,\u00a0voted to reaffirm its position of suspended relations with the Histadrut<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tFollowing a call for concrete solidarity from Palestinian Christians entitled Kairos Palestine,churches around the world<\/strong>\u00a0have adopted\u00a0BDS-related actions:<\/p>\n \n\t– In the US, the Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC)\u00a0divested<\/a>\u00a0$900,000 in shares of Caterpillar, targeted over its sale of bulldozers to Israel that are used to violate Palestinian rights. The\u00a0worldwide United Methodist Church<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Presbyterian Church in the US<\/a>\u00a0have both called on their members to boycott produce from illegal Israeli settlements.<\/p>\n \n\t– In the UK, the\u00a0Methodist Church<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Quakers in Britain<\/a>\u00a0recently called on the UK government to ban trade in products from illegal Israeli settlements.<\/p>\n \n\tAt university campuses across the world, the\u00a0student movement\u00a0<\/strong>in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle continues to rapidly emerge:<\/p>\n \n\t– In North America, students are developing sophisticated and widely supported campus divestment initiatives, with student unions in\u00a0Regina<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Carleton<\/a>\u00a0in Canada and\u00a0National Mov\u00edm\u00edento Estud\u00edant\u00edl Ch\u00edcan@ de Aztl\u00e1n (M.E.Ch.A)<\/a>, the largest association of Latin@ youth in the US, and the student government at\u00a0University of Massachusetts-Boston<\/a>\u00a0voting to support divestment and other\u00a0BDS\u00a0initiatives. The first student-led\u00a0BDS\u00a0U.S. national conference was held at the University of Pennsylvania earlier this year following a successful national student \u00a0conference at Columbia University last year.<\/p>\n \n\t–\u00a0BDS\u00a0student groups are growing across Europe. In the UK the National Union of Students hasendorsed<\/a>\u00a0student campaigns that have succeeded in ending relationships between universities and Ahava and Eden Springs. Edinburgh University Student Association\u00a0voted<\/a>\u00a0to end its contract with G4S.<\/p>\n \n\tWith 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\u00a0BDS\u00a0campaigns, especially in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and Kuwait.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Israeli establishment is growing increasingly concerned with the growth of the\u00a0BDSmovement. Israeli\u00a0President Shimon Peres recently cited fear of the impacts of\u00a0BDS\u00a0as a reason to “make peace”<\/a>. Meanwhile, top\u00a0Israeli business leaders have launched their own “peace initative”<\/a>\u00a0out of fear of the impact of\u00a0BDS. Some Zionist leaders are also starting to call for change in Israeli policies out of fear of\u00a0BDS. The leading Israeli think tank the Reut Institute has spoken of\u00a0BDS\u00a0as a “strategic threat”, prompting the Israeli government to pass a\u00a0draconian law forbidding any citizen from supporting\u00a0BDS<\/a>\u00a0or any partial boycott. There is a real and growing fear within Israel that it is becoming a pariah state in the way that South Africa once was.<\/p>\n \n\tAgainst 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\u00a0BDS\u00a0as an effective and morally compelling tool in support of the Palestinian struggle for comprehensive rights. Israel realizes it and so do we:\u00a0BDS\u00a0is 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.<\/p>\n \n\thttp:\/\/www.bdsmovement.net\/2012\/bds-at-7-9206<\/p>\n \n\tBNC Secretariat<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’re publishing on our web page the balance sheet made by Palestinian\u00a0BDS\u00a0National Committee on their 7 years campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to stop Israeli aggression to Palestinian people. IWL-FI supports BDS campaign and the struggle of Palestinians to be free from Israeli oppression and the end of the state of Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2335,"menu_order":2487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"litci_post_political_author":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3710],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/palestine_bds.jpg?fit=240%2C180&ssl=1","fimg_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/palestine_bds.jpg?fit=240%2C180&ssl=1","categories_names":["Palestine"],"author_info":{"name":"litci","pic":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c5ccde5393ccb83747702c5ca92f55d8fdaf99be9432d0142571c6d437fbaadb?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"political_author":null,"tagline":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}