On the second anniversary of the condemnation by the International Court of Justice of its colonial Wall and its entire regime of occupation as illegal, Israel is not only proceeding unabated in constructing the Wall and expanding its colonies, but has also launched a ruthless military assault on the defenceless Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel calls upon international civil society to act now to boycott Israel and divest from it in order to bring about an end to its occupation and persistent violation of international law.

Since the beginning of its current invasion of Gaza, and under the pretence of freeing a captured soldier, Israel has violated basic principles of international law and committed war crimes, as documented by Amnesty International, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, and other human rights bodies. These crimes and the resulting tragic death toll among Palestinian civilians are not surprising, given Israel’s long record of dehumanizing Palestinians and its collective punishment against them.

When elections were imposed on the Palestinian people, while still under occupation, we questioned and suspected the whole process. We wondered how a free election could be conducted while the whole nation lives under a military occupation, especially in light of the undeniable correlation between freedom and democracy, as stated on the US State Department’s website:

Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalization of freedom.¹