ditor’s note: This article is an example of practical solidarity with a community of the Palestinian people facing continuous ethnic cleansing by Israeli forces. While it’s author refers to, and bears the name “boycott,” that organized measure is a matter of personal consumer choice. Neither HIC nor HLRN has taken formal positions on such strategy. Rather, in international law, the nonrecognition of, and noncooperation with such an illegal situation as Israel’s occupation and apartheid in Palestine are obligations of all states and their organs. It is from that perspective that we reprint this item.
BDS Campaigning in Solidarity with Masafar Yatta
Through BDS campaigning, build concrete solidarity for the resistance in Masafar Yatta
Thousands of Palestinians in Masafar Yatta, in the area south of occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron), face the imminent threat of expulsion in what would be the largest expulsions carried out by the Israeli apartheid regime since the 1970s. We are witnessing through testimonies, images and videos shared from the ground Israel’s brutal violence and repression in Masafar Yatta since the Israeli High Court, a critical part of Israel’s apartheid system, ruled in favour of the ethnic cleansing of some 1,300 Palestinians living in eight villages there.
Home demolitions and forced expulsion of Palestinian communities are the very method through which apartheid Israel entrenches its settler colonialism. Just since the beginning of this year we have witnessed similar violence against Bedouin communities in Al Naqab and in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
Beyond messages of solidarity, we need to take concrete steps to stop corporations from profiting off of apartheid, and to pressure Israel to end its decades long regime of apartheid, occupation and settler colonialism. Here are the ongoing BDS campaigns that you can support in solidarity with Palestinian communities in Masafar Yatta resisting ethnic cleansing. Each of these targets are complicit in Israel’s apartheid and directly involved in the colonization of Palestinian lands:
- Boycott HP campaign: to end HP Enterprise’ services to Israeli prison and police authorities, that enable apartheid Israel’s criminal violence.
- Boycott Puma campaign: the sports equipment manufacturer sponsors the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
- AXA Divest campaign: to pressure the insurance giant to cut its investments in Israeli banks and corporations that enable Israel’s illegal policies of settlements, ethnic cleansing and annexation.
- Stop Greenwashing Apartheid campaign: exposing Israel’s greenwashing and holding the so-called Jewish National Fund as well as complicit Israeli agri-business, such as Mekorot, Netafim, and Haifa Chemicals, accountable.
- Divest from Hyundai Heavy Industries: to pressure the bulldozer company to stop supplying its equipment and profiting off apartheid Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities.
Photo: Israeli soldiers in stand-off with indigenous Palestinian resident of Masafar Yatta. Source: BNC.
