The Anti-Israel Boycott: A timely measure against injustice

It was 5am on the morning of 2 August 2009 when the eviction happened. I was sleeping in the home of the Hannoun family in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem, knowing that at any moment the police could arrive. Israeli forces commenced the eviction by throwing a brick through the window, before masked special police broke down the doors, attacked the family and activists inside the house and threw us out onto the street. Overnight, the Hannoun family were made refugees for the second time, having first been displaced during the ‘Nakba’ in 1948, as Zionist paramilitaries massacred and ethnically cleansed the indigenous Palestinian population from their land.

In 1956, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) built homes in Sheikh Jarrah for the Hannouns and 28 other refugee families. Israel is now claiming Sheikh Jarrah as its own, and is slowly evicting the families in the neighbourhood one by one. Thus far four families have been evicted, and now living in the families' houses are extreme ideological settlers who have immigrated from Russia and the United States.

The story of Sheikh Jarrah is relevant as it’s a microcosm of what the state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Apartheid is not a word that should be used lightly. However, when one considers the ongoing ethnic cleansing, the official state segregation, the two-tier legal system, and the racially discriminatory laws - it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that Israel is an apartheid state.

Despite widespread condemnation, and attempts at “constructive engagement”, Israel continues to act with impunity by denying Palestinians their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination.

That is why, in 2005, a mass coalition of Palestinian civil society came together to call for people of conscience all over the world to initiate campaigns of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it abides by international law. The call for BDS demands an end to the occupation and colonisation of Arab lands taken in 1967, full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the protection and promotion of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Since the call was made, the BDS movement has grown at a rapid pace. Companies involved in the occupation have lost billions of pounds worth of contracts and in the last six months alone, signatories to the BDS call have included Gil-Scott Heron, Roger Waters and Pete Seeger. Signatories also include dozens of Jewish and Israeli groups who stand courageously on the right side of history and say that the actions of the Israeli state are not done in their name. In addition, in a wonderful show of solidarity with the Palestinians, over 90% of students at the recent EUSA General meeting voted for a boycott of Israeli goods.

There are those who claim that Israel is unfairly singled out for criticism. It is true that many other countries commit grave atrocities too and must be challenged. However the argument that we must not act for justice in Palestine because “other countries do bad stuff too” is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Israel singles itself out through its racist and colonial policies. It is singled out by the United States with $8.3 million dollars of military funding each day, and by other Western governments which allow it to act with impunity.

The international civil society movement towards a true just peace in Palestine is growing. As students, we have a massive role to play in this. Students for Justice in Palestine is compromised of people from all faiths and none, who have come together to fight injustice and stand in solidarity with the occupied and displaced Palestinian people. As Desmond Tutu said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you take the side of the oppressor”. We stand with the oppressed and will continue to do so until Palestine is free.