Guardian letter about the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement
Nathan Thrall’s article is a welcome in-depth, and accurate account of an unjustly slandered campaign. He gets to the crux of the issues BDS activists highlight: that Israel has established a one-state reality that privileges the rights of Jews while denying rights to Palestinians and that this unjust system meets the legal definition of apartheid. Emphasising Palestinians’ long-standing use of nonviolent tactics like boycott, Thrall also lays bare the violent and repressive responses of Israeli governments even to such unarmed resistance. Hence Palestinians called for international support through BDS.
But the boycott is not about western civil society somehow liberating Palestinians. It is about us seeking to end the complicity of our governments and other institutions in their oppression; an act of solidarity.
In the UK, a two-way arms embargo on Israel must be imposed immediately, universities must divest from companies profiting from Israeli apartheid and banks like HSBC must sever links with the arms companies facilitating Israel’s massacres.
Ben Jamal
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- This letter was published in the Guardian on 16.08.2018, and can be found here.