Dear friends,
I recently sent you a letter that the No Time To Celebrate Campaign wrote to Paul McCartney, asking him not perform in Israel. This week, No Time To Celebrate has issued another letter to several Hollywood stars who plan to attend a $1,000-per-person event in LA on Sept 18 to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary. You can find the letter at www.notimetocelebrate.org.
After the McCartney letter, some of you wrote to me, confused for a few different reasons about our call for boycott, and I realize now that I should have given it context. So, here it is:
On July 9, 2005, on the 1st anniversary of the international court decision against the wall that Israel is building on Palestinian land, hundreds of Palestinian civil society organizations issued a call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The reasoning: When our governments do not enforce international law, we as citizens have the responsibility to do so. Boycott is a nonviolent tool that can be used by individuals and groups to hold institutions and governments accountable for their actions. The Palestinian call was rooted partially in the successes of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and around the world.
For the past three years since the call, hundreds of campaigns have sprouted up throughout the world, from academic and cultural boycott to consumer boycott to campus and city divestment resolutions. Some have been "successful"; others have not. Part of the thinking is that pointing out Israel's nature as an apartheid state, bringing that into the public realm for debate, is useful whether or not resolutions immediately pass. Ultimately, success comes not from the monetary damage of boycott but from its political damage. And so, here we are, trying to support local campaigns and lending our voice and support to the international campaigns.
I'll include part of the BDS call below. You can see that the demands are very clear and have to do with treatment of three different groups of Palestinian people. A lot of campaigns have been incorporating these demands into their own work, whether or not the campaigns are specifically about boycott. For the full BDS call, see www.bdsmovement.net (also has definitions and explanations of the different elements of the campaign, FAQs, etc.).
Here's the closing part of the call:
"...We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.
These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194."
I hope this is clarifying to folks, and perhaps even inspiring - Go out there, join campaigns, start your own campaigns, and be in touch if you want advice on any of this (or if you want to get involved in the next incarnation of No Time To Celebrate, which will be focusing on BDS).
-Hannah
