Palestinian BDS National Committee: Sanction Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime (plus: Palestinian trade unions call for escalating BDS pressure)

First published at bdsmovement.net.

In September, the UN General Assembly passed a historic resolution, calling for states and the UN to sanction Israel. This resolution affirmed that the July 2024 ruling by the ICJ triggers the legal obligation of all states to end complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid regime. 124 states across the globe committed to take the first steps to impose sanctions. The time to make this a reality is now!

For over a year, we have been sharing the images, stories and ghastly statistics of the rising number of Palestinians killed, burned, starved, displaced, and fallen sick in Israel’s ever more devastating genocide against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. We have been calling louder than ever for pressure on states and international institutions to fulfill the bare minimum of their legal obligation to end complicity by imposing lawful, targeted sanctions on Israel.

It is the complicity of the “international community” with Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid that has given it what the UN Secretary General calls “total impunity,” emboldening it to perpetrate the world’s first livestreamed genocide against the Indigenous Palestinian people.

Faced with Israel’s ever worsening atrocities and crimes against humanity, a growing number of states have started to heed the Palestinian call to end Israel’s impunity, giving in to pressure of the mass movements across the globe.

Some states have ended or downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel. Many have been forced to at least proclaim that they stopped military exports and transfers to Israel, even though the policy statements are often still not followed up in reality. Courts have ruled against sending weapons to Israel. Corporations have ended expansion plans and ties with Israel. Ships carrying weapons bound for Israel are being denied docking permission by a growing number of states. Trade unions, students, civil society organizations, cultural and academic collectives along with tens of millions of people of conscience around the world have been relentlessly organizing and calling for sanctions, military embargoes, boycotts and divestments against Israel and complicit corporations.

Yet, apartheid Israel continues its genocide in Gaza along with intensifying its violence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, its rolling massacres in Lebanon and escalating aggression against other states in the region. Even though it has attacked the UN relentlessly, including killing at least 228 of its staff members, destroying UN schools, targeting UN peacekeepers in Lebanon with white phosphorus, and now banning the UN Relief and Works Agency in areas under its control, Israel remains a member of the UN!

As Israel’s shocking pulverization of international law threatens to push the entire world towards a colonial “might makes right” order, it is not sufficient to point the finger at Israel’s Western partners in the genocide. States across the world have to step forward and cut their own military, trade, diplomatic, academic, sports and cultural relations with apartheid Israel, as was done to isolate apartheid South Africa.

Join us in a global week of action from 20th to 29th November, leading up to the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and pressure states and the UN to take concrete actions of accountability. Pressure your government to heed the unified Palestinian call for sanctions by:

• Calling for or supporting demands to suspend Israel at the UNGA and to exclude it from international fora.

• Imposing a mandatory and comprehensive two-way military embargo on Israel, including all military and dual use equipment and joint military and dual-use research and military-industry partnerships.

• Imposing lawful and targeted sanctions, including ending diplomatic relations with Israel, imposing banking and financial sanctions on it as well as suspending trade and other cooperation agreements with it.

• Refraining from aiding, assisting or recognizing the unlawful situation created by Israel’s breaches of international law, including through a comprehensive ban on business deals involving Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories.

• Imposing targeted sanctions on complicit physical and legal persons, Israeli and international corporations and institutions involved in Israel’s breaches of international law and international crimes.

Here are some suggested actions for this week:

1. Peacefully disrupt the genocide enablers, the decision makers in your government and state institutions that keep up the ties of complicity.

2. Organize a letter/email-action or other forms of mass mobilization to pressure your government, relevant ministries and/or parliament to heed context-sensitive demands, using accessible, local/regional languages.

3. Organize advocacy meetings with MPs and ministers, briefing them on their obligations to end genocide and apartheid against Palestinians. You can find relevant materials for these briefings here.

Channel your grief and anger towards meaningful collective action. Push your government to end complicity with genocidal Israel and hold it accountable for its crimes against Palestinians and against humanity at large.

Never Again is Now!

Palestinian trade unions & professional syndicates call for escalating BDS pressure to end complicity with Israel’s #GazaGenocide & apartheid

First published at bdsmovement.net.

More than one year into the livestreamed genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, Palestinians stand united in resisting Israel’s genocide and decades-old regime of settler-colonialism, occupation and apartheid. We call on trade unions and workers worldwide to escalate BDS pressure to end the complicity of states, corporations and institutions in Israel’s crimes against the entire Palestinian people, as well as the fraternal people of Lebanon, among others.

International workers’ solidarity begins with ending complicity. This is not just a moral issue but also a legal obligation. The rulings by the International Court of Justice against Israel’s genocide, occupation and apartheid, the UN Human Rights Council’s call for a military embargo on Israel, and the UN General Assembly’s calls for sanctions all show that BDS measures are not just a right, but also a legal obligation.

Here are some of the most inspiring measures taken by trade unions worldwide in the last year alone in support of the Palestinian liberation struggle:

• IndustriALL Global Union, a global union federation that represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors, has endorsed BDS, becoming by far the largest trade union body to support BDS

• Norway’s one-million strong trade union federation LO has played a significant role in the divestment of the Norwegian sovereign fund, the largest in the world, of its entire holding of approximately $500 million of Israel Bonds.

• Major Indian trade unions representing tens of millions of workers have demanded of the Indian government to cancel an agreement to “export” Indian workers to Israel to replace Palestinian workers, urging workers to boycott Israeli products and to not handle Israeli cargo.

• Dockworkers unions in Belgium, India, Catalonia, Italy, Greece, Turkey, California, and South Africa have taken actions against Israeli ships or arms shipments to Israel.

• The UK’s Trades Union Congress (TUC), representing 5.5 million workers and 48 unions, has unanimously called for a full arms embargo against Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid, reminding government of its obligations to prevent genocide.

• IAATW, an international alliance of app-based transport workers unions with 100k members from over 27 countries and 6 continents, has decided to boycott Chevron gas stations.

• USS, one of the UK’s largest pension funds, has divested its over $100 million holding of Israel Bonds after pressure from the University and College Union (UCU).

• For the first time ever, 7 major US labor unions, representing nearly half of all union members, have called to “shut off US military aid to Israel.”

• The General Union of Workers of Ecuador (UGTE) has endorsed BDS, including the cultural boycott of Israel, declaring itself an Israeli Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ).

• Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union, representing 27,000 university workers, has endorsed the boycott of all complicit Israeli universities and called on Australian universities to end ties with the Israeli military and its suppliers.

• France’s CGT Thalès (trade union representing workers of this arms company) has called for “suspending all collaboration with Israel because of what's happening in Gaza.” Most recently, the Paris section of the CGT trade union federation has endorsed BDS.

• 700 members of Hollywood’s SAG-AFTRA union, including Oscar winners, have condemned Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and its murder of Palestinian journalists.

• Argentina’s ATE Córdoba trade union has endorsed BDS, declaring itself an Israeli Apartheid Free Zone.

• The Scottish Artists Union and the Artists Union of Ireland (Praxis) have both endorsed BDS, including the cultural boycott of Israel, with the latter declaring itself an Israeli Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ).

The Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), and the Palestine Academy for Science and Technology (PalAST), representing nearly 10,000 university workers, has welcomed measures by universities worldwide toward “reviewing, suspending and severing collaboration agreements with Israeli universities and research centers that are complicit in Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”

BDS pressure is the most effective form of international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation, justice, and the return of our refugees, building people power to end complicity. Accordingly, and in harmony with our call from October 2023, we call on all of you to escalate BDS pressure:

1. Divest & Exclude from Contracts and investments, where applicable, complicit companies like Intel, Chevron, Amazon, Google, HP, Caterpillar, HD Hyundai, Carrefour, McDonald’s, FANUC, Siemens, AXA, and others. Pressure your institution (city council, university, etc.) or employer to do the same. Also partner with strategic justice movements (including student-led groups) to mobilize pressure on institutions, like universities and city councils, to divest from and end ties with military, tech and other companies arming or otherwise enabling Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and military occupation. This has been successfully done at Columbia University-affiliated Union Theological Seminary, San Francisco State University, the city councils of Richmond (California), Liege (Belgium), Oslo (Norway), and Belem (Brazil), among others.

2. End Arms Trade with Genocide: Refuse to build, handle, or transport any military and dual-use items for genocidal Israel. Stop Israel-bound ships and military cargo, including providing “ flags of convenience,” through protests, pickets, lobbying governments, legal action, “bureaucratic” measures, and media campaigns.

3. No Tech for Genocide or Apartheid! Tech workers and labor unions: organize from within the tech sector to build power to end the complicity of companies, such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, HP, Intel, Palantir, and Cisco that are enabling Israel’s genocide and/or automating its apartheid.

4. Pressure Governments to End Complicity and Impose Military Embargo & Sanctions! Keep following Palestinian civil society’s policy guidance and demands here.

5. No Ties to Apartheid Union: Cut ties with Israel’s Histadrut, a pillar of colonialism and apartheid.

Signed:

• Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) - Gaza

• General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW)

• Palestinian Union of Postal, IT & Telecommunications Workers

• Federation of Independent Trade Unions

• General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT)

• General Union of Palestinian Women

• The Palestinian New Federation of Trade Unions

• Palestinian Bar Association

• Palestinian Dental Association - Jerusalem Center

• Palestinian Pharmacists Association - Jerusalem Center

• Medical Association - Jerusalem Center

• Engineers Association - Jerusalem Center

• Agricultural Engineers Association - Jerusalem Center

• Veterinarians Syndicate - Jerusalem Center

• Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS)

• Union of Workers in Local Bodies - Hebron

• Southern Electricity Company Employees Union

• Association of the Financial Sector Employees

• Health Services Employees’ Association

• Palestine Electricians Trade Union

• Jawwal Employee Association

• The National Trade Union for Banking and Insurance