Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) Against Israel Campaign
In preparation for
the Palestinian National Conference on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
that will be held in Hebron later this year, a preparatory workshop was
conducted yesterday (22 September) in the city and attended by over 50
activists and representatives of numerous grassroots civil society
organizations.
The workshop was
initiated by the Occupied Palestinian and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy
Initiative (OPGAI), a coalition of progressive Palestinian civil society groups
which also advocated that the upcoming conference be held in the city of Hebron.
Saed Madiah from the
Hebron-based Alanqa Cultural Association opened the workshop with a clarification
of the Israeli policy in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories
as a colonial regime that is constructing an apartheid regime in the area. Accordingly, BDS is one of the most crucial means
on which the Palestinians should focus in their struggle against the occupation.
Omar Barghouti from
the Palestinian BDS National Committee presented a review of the BDS experience
in Palestine
and on the international level. Barghouti remarked that the Israeli occupation
is everywhere and that this policy results in a negation of Palestinians
rights, land confiscation, settlement expansion and the dividing up of
Palestinians lands. Although Israeli propaganda strives to give the impression
that there are two states and two authorities—Israeli and Palestinian—this is
not true, and in this framework we must work hard on the international level to
provide an accurate picture about the reality of the Israeli occupation and the
Palestinian people living without freedom. From here, we must work on boycott,
disinvest and sanctions against the Israeli occupation.
The call
of Palestinian civil society for BDS includes an explicit invitation for
Israelis to join, stating “we also invite conscientious Israelis to support
this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.” Accordingly, workshop participants further
examined the differences between the joint Palestinian-Israeli struggle, of
which the Alternative Information Center (AIC) is a part, and issues of
normalization.
“The importance of
this workshop cannot be overstated,” says Ahmad Jaradat of the AIC, a member of
OPGAI. “Representatives of grassroots groupings, including unions of workers,
writers and women, in addition to land defense committees and youth groups, joined
with local and national NGOs for a workshop that truly represents the richness
of Palestinian civil society. The effectiveness of our call for BDS is greatly
enhanced by the diversity of those making it.”
Workshop participants established a local committee
that will work with OPGAI and the BDS National Committee to prepare for the
upcoming national conference.
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