Israhell: Industrial Death State on Steroids

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Details

Whanganui Tramways Museum
27 Taupo Quay, Whanganui

Start

Saturday 16 November, 2024
11:00AM

Finish

Saturday 16 November, 2024
12:00PM

Description

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions - Why we are targeting the Israel connections?
At the highest level, it’s a matter of direct action substituting for government inaction. 

The New Zealand government could be doing all sorts of things.  Expelling the Israeli ambassador would be just a start.  Our government should be joining South Africa in the International Court of Justice to plead the genocide case against Israel.  It could be joining Malaysia to boot Israel out of the United Nations.

At home, New Zealand should withhold visas from anyone living or working in the Occupied Territories, or who serves, or has served, in the Israeli Defence Forces.
It should end its bilateral contacts with Israel, such as in movie joint production or technical collaboration.
It could put a ban on imports from the Occupied Territories and it could instruct the Super Fund to pull out of investments in the UN xx list of Israeli companies.

Our government has done none of these things.  It won’t even pubically criticise Israel.
So civic action becomes to only option for Aotearoa New Zealand to support the Palestinian struggle against genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
For decades, this was the action taken by people in Aotearoa New Zealand against apartheid in South Africa, culminating in the mass action against the Springbok rugby tour to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1981.
Sporting contact with South Africa was the main target.  The crumbling white regime in South Africa was profoundly shaken by the fact that people in another far away colonial country, such as New Zealand, would mobilise in their tens of thousands against apartheid.
But it was not just sport.  Links to apartheid South Africa through companies such as Niederburg wine, New Zealand Insurance and Rothmans cigarettes were also subject to action.
Almost invariably, civic action to isolate a pariah state, such as Israel or South Africa, needs to be coordinated across many countries to work.

The is where the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement comes in.  Here’s the core of their mission statement (written well before the recent Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza);
“The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls for a boycott of Israeli and international companies that are complicit in violations of Palestinian rights. Virtually all Israeli companies are complicit to some degree in Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid. We focus our boycotts on a small number of companies and products for maximum impact. We focus on companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where we think we can have an impact.”

The last three words are crucial.  The desired end result is not words or ‘raised understanding’.  It is about action that has an effect.
BDS is deliberately vague about the desired final political outcome of a Palestine arising from the campaigns.
But BDS does make it clear that isolating Israel internationally is vital to forcing Israelis to accept Palestinian rights.
https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott