[R-G] Solidarity with Palestine: Crisis Responses and Movement Building

[Anthony Fenton]

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 176 ... January 11, 2009
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Solidarity with Palestine:
Crisis Responses and Movement Building

Kole Kilibarda

As the number of deaths from Israel's carnage in Gaza mounts, more and  
more people in Canada are being moved to take action. Of course, the  
question quickly becomes: "What can I do?" Among the countless  
petitions, creative actions, protests, media alerts, letter writing  
campaigns, public statements and fundraising drives, how can we make  
the biggest collective impact on Israeli policies as people living in  
Canada? How can we build a movement that respects all of our different  
experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and understandings and at the  
same time effectively responds to Palestinian calls for solidarity?

Each contribution to stop the killing immediately helps, but as Naomi  
Klein has recently pointed out in The Nation magazine, there's a way  
of focusing our energies on a campaign that comes directly from  
Palestine and that directly addresses Israel's ability to kill with  
impunity. The fact is that Palestinian students, workers, women's  
organizations, doctors, professors, teachers, refugees,  
environmentalists, peasant's groups, and others have already told us  
what they want us to do: launch boycott, divestment and sanctions  
(BDS) campaigns against any aspect of Israel's apartheid system.

Thinking About the Day After the Ceasefire

Effectively opposing the carnage in Gaza then means not only calling  
for a ceasefire or a halt to the bombing. A "ceasefire," though  
important to prevent the killing, would still only restore (and  
potentially worsen) the every-day apartheid reality separating  
Israelis and Palestinians. A "ceasefire" that provides only guarantees  
of Israeli security, but doesn't lift the siege on Gaza, or that fails  
to ensure that those responsible for the war-crimes committed by  
Israel are brought to justice, would only reward the Israeli military  
for its on-going violations of international law. It would tell Israel  
that it's okay to resume the current level of mass killing anytime in  
the future.

When the current fighting stops, Palestinian refugees – kicked out of  
their homes in 1948 and now numbering over 5-million – will still be  
denied the right to return to their homes. After the current fighting  
stops, Palestinians who have "citizenship" in Israel, will still  
continue to live as second-class citizens in their own country. They  
will still be legally prevented from owning land or living in large  
areas of Israel, marrying who they want, or even enjoying the same  
citizenship rights and privileges as Jewish Israelis. After the  
current fighting stops, Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the  
West Bank will continue facing a brutal military occupation, including  
arbitrary arrests, torture, killings, detentions, various forms of  
collective punishment, etc.

The struggle against Israeli apartheid is, therefore, a long-term  
struggle. If we want to support the Palestinian struggle against this  
racist regime, we need to commit ourselves to building a Palestine  
solidarity movement that effectively challenges Israel's apartheid  
system and that effectively responds to what Palestinians are telling  
us they expect from supporters. By isolating apartheid Israel,  
including Israeli government officials, institutions and companies  
that benefit from the current situation, Israel and its supporters  
will be given a strong message that violations of basic Palestinian  
rights will not be tolerated.

No grassroots actions in solidarity with Palestine have worried the  
Israeli government and its supporters over the years as has the BDS  
campaign launched by over 170 Palestinian organizations in the summer  
of 2005. In fact, the Israeli government struck up a high level  
committee specifically to combat the global "threat" of a solidarity  
movement opposed to its institutionalized system of racist privilege  
and domination over indigenous Palestinians. Currently supporters of  
Israeli policies are working furiously to suppress the 5th annual  
Israel Apartheid Week on campuses across Canada – though the event  
will be taking place on campuses across four continents this coming  
March 2009. Diplomatically, Israeli policy makers are trying furiously  
to discredit the Durban Review Conference on Racism that is likely to  
condemn Israel's racist laws.

Unfortunately, for Israel and its supporters, the BDS movement has  
already reached the UN General Assembly, with the president of this  
body, Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, calling on civil society to  
support this campaign as the only moral way forward in ensuring  
Palestinian rights and dealing with Israeli violations: "More than  
twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil  
society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a  
nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations.  
Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the  
lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a  
similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to  
pressure Israel to end its violations."

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