Dear all,
as you will remember, we decided at the last EC meeting to take up the question of BDS at the January Convention with the view of an EJJP declaration of the matter. We also decided that for this purpose each member country should draw up a statement giving its view on BDS. The following is the statement of the "Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in Near East", Austria :
In July 2005 over 170 Palestinian organisations, movements, parties and trade unions came together to launch a call for BDS. In July 2008, the Palestinian BDS National committee (BNC) initiated a major new outline resource for the BDS campaigns, the www.BDSmovement.net. BDS iniatives have since been gradually and persistently spreading all over the world, drawing on a full range of actions, bringing together Palestinian and international actors in a new way to challenge Israel's multiple forms of colonial and racist oppression of the Palestinian people. The significance of this campaign lies in the fact that it constitutes, on the basis of international legal standards, an instrument of civil non-violent resistence which puts pressure on Israel to comply with international law as long it continues its policy of occupation and of systematic discrimination, oppression, ousting and expulsion - an ongoing Nakba - of the Palestinians from their homeland. The most recent appeal for BDS was launched on January 1, 2010 by the "Gaza Freedom Marchers" (1400 activists from 43 countries) -who were prevented from entering Gaza by the Egyptian authorities - by issuing the "Cairo Declaration" aimed at accelerating the global casmpaign for BDS against Israeli Apartheid.
The BDS campaign comprises a variety of means and instruments of action - depending on the respective national contexts - such as:
- boycott of Israeli (and not just limited to the occupied territories) products (fruit, vegetables,wine, flowers, cosmetics etc.)
-of firms and enterprises of all types
- of cultural (book fairs, film and theatre festivals), sport and tourism events
- of scientific and academic institutions and projects which are directly or indirectly related to the occupation and the
repression of the Palestinian people.
Some examples are: boycott of AGREXCO, an enterprise that installs portuary terminals in all Europe, selling and distributing agricultural products, both from Israel and the settlements in the occupied territories; in Belgium, 14 municipalities have disinvested from a bank (Dexia) which, through its Israeli branch, participated in the financing of settlements in the occupied territories; the city of Bordeaux disinvested from multinationals such as Veolia Transport, specialised i.a. in garbage recycling and that planned to build a tramway in Jerusalem; the British town of Sandwell and ther city of Stockholm followed suit (for further details s. "Le Monde diplômatique", September 2009).
Academic boycott is of major importance - apart against those Israeli academics who have publicly declared their opposition to the occupation and governement policies of discrimination and repression. It is applied to make Israeli academics reflect on their role in Israel's secondary and higher education systems that foster nationalism and militarism. The Israeli academic institutions are state-sponsored or - controlled. They produce the manpower which carries out the occupation, the secret services, the engineers and technicians who who build the separation wall, the road network in the occupied territories, the architects who design the larger settlements, the historians who distort history by concealing the Nakba etc. University institutes carry out scientific research for the arms industry and the defence department. A vast majority of Israeli academics and intellectuals thus either contribute directly to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying oppression or are complicit in it through their silence regarding the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. On the other hand, Palestinian academics lack freedom of movement and academic freedom which is ignored by their Israeli counterparts. When recently Professor Neve Gordon of Beersheba University openly declared to be in favour of BDS, hundreds of Israeli academics supported his personal right to call for boycott - but applying this support to themselves is anorther matter!
Replies to various objections to BDS :
1) "It is collective punishment, it punishes the whole Israeli society, even those who are innocent, the poor and not the policy makers". Are the wall, curfews, blockade of Gaza and the murderous attack of 2008/09 not collective punishments ?
2) "BDS is counteproductive. It confirms the feelings of Israelis as eternal victims - "The whole wporld id against us". This feeling is there in any case, whenever Israel is being critisized. BDS, especially after everything else has failed,does yield results which is proved by the fact that Israel is very worried over the effects of the BDS campaign. According to South African activists, the BDS campaign is growing faster than that at the time against South Africa, despite the fact that then governments of many countries had joined the boycott.
3) "BDS undermines the Israeli peace movement." The latter is far from being homogenous - it varies greatly in types of action and objectives. Some groups only seek to lighten the burden of occupation, e.g.Machsom Watch. Only those who openly confront the occupation and state policies together with the Palestinians are the real "peace activists" such as "Anarchists against the Wall", the movement against house demolitions (Jeff Halper), Yeh Din, GIsha (for freedom of movement), new Profile (against militarism), B'tselem (for human rights) etc. These groups support the various forms of BDS. There exists also a working grpup "Israeli Citizens for a Boycott of Israel".
4) "BDS fosters antisemitism". This argument is used especially in Germany and Austria by recalling the Nazi campaign of 1933 - and later in 1938 - to boycott Jewish shops. BDS is obviously not directed against Jews as such nor against Israelis as Jews, but against the State of israel as a colonial and occupation power that violates international law. It is a means of resistence, independent of the religion of most Israelis.
There are BDS activities and campaigns carried out by NGOs, trade unions, Palestine Solidarity groups etc. in the following countries (list of 2008) : Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, catalonia, England and Wales, Euskal Herria (Baque Country), Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States (Source: "Al Majdal", quarterly magazine of the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency.htm and Refugee Rights, www.badil.org/al-Majdal/al-Majdal.htm)
In Austria - which is not yet on this list - we have started to distribute boycott flyers in 2009 and hold up signs calling for boycott at the regular monthly vigils of "Women in Black". We attach great importance to a world-wide BDS campaign since most of our governments support Israel in various ways - diplomatically,militarily, -and allow it to behave with total impunity, whatever it does or show indifference with regard to Israel's constant violations of humanitarian and international law. Words, protests, petitions have proved to be of no avail. A widely enforced BDS may be the one thing that will have an effect.
Peter Melvyn
"Jewish Voice", Austria