Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

The Boycott, Divisions and Sanctions movement  (BDS) was formed many years ago to oppose the illegal building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and initially asked traders not to purchase Israeli produce or products grown or made in these illegal settlements. At that time one of the organisations who supported the BDS movements aims in the U.K. was the Cooperative who would not stock items from these illegal settlements in their shops.

 In parallel with the unjust attembpts, last summer, to smear Jeremy Corbyn as anti semitic in the U.K. (a disgrace against a principled man who has opposed injustices and racial and religious discrimination all his life) there have been similar attempts recently in the U.S.A. to discredit politicians and organisations who oppose Israel’s illegal and growing number of settlements on Palestinian land. It is no coincidence. Israel, or more correctly Netanyahu-the Prime Minister, Mossad his secret service, and Israeli supporters in the west, including British MPs and American Congressman and Senators and the media have been conducting a ruthless smear campaign against anyone who sympathises with the Palestinian cause by branding them as anti-semitic. Anti semitism  is evil but to critisise Israel’sattempt to Exterminate Palestine is not, indeed it becomes more and more justified  as more and more Palestinians are murdered and their land occupied.  It is unsurprising therefore that BDS itself is now under extreme attack. I have supported them with small financial donations for many years, since I served the Coop-erative retail movement. I was, however, more than a little surprised to read the dirty tricks being used against them described in a recent newsletter that I received from them, an extract from which I include below:-
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Dear supporter, 

I write with a personal message from the BDS movement in Palestine. 

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. 

We are overwhelmed, and deeply touched, by your generous response to our fundraising appeal.

On December 21, a front for the Israeli government with ties to the Mossad deployed McCarthyite legal threats and bullying tactics, forcing a U.S. company to suspend our fundraising software account.

Within days, we managed to bring our fundraiser back online.

Israel’s desperate, possibly criminal, attempt to prevent us from challenging its decades-old system of military occupation and apartheid has backfired.

Many more than ever before have responded by making this fundraiser a record breaker!

Your donations have shown that Israel cannot silence us.

In 2019, we shall need your help to keep growing our BDS movement for Palestinian rights while simultaneously defending it against Israel’s mounting war of repression. 

Whether you are a BDS organizer, a supporter of progressive causes, or simply a decent person who is sick and tired of powerful systems of oppression trampling on freedom of expression, your support helps our nonviolent movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality to grow like never before.

Warmly, 

Hind Awwad 
Palestinian human rights defender, member of the Steering Committee of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

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Banksy

 So much of the Palestinian West  Bank is now occupied by the settlements, and the wall that the Israelis built,  that the two state solution ( which envisions a Palestinian state made up of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem existing alongside an Israeli one. It has been the government of Israel's stated policy, but Palestinians accuse the government of negotiating it in bad faith because it has allowed settlements to grow)  probably now will never be implemented because some much Palestinian. land has been taken that their territory only exists in pockets. And the extreme right Israelis have got such a foothold in the territories, which they feel is part of  greater Israel and is defended by their own armed vigilantes and the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).