During the month of March, 2009, the Palestine National BDS Committee has launched a major endorsement gathering drive. This leads up to the Global Day of BDS actions on March 30 that was announced at the World Social Forum held last month in Brazil.
We are calling upon all organizations within the WSF process to join us by endorsing the Palestinian civil society Call for BDS.
Sign on here
If you can sign on by March 28, your name will be included in the endorsement declaration for March 30.
If you can, please add a link to this endorsement page on your organization’s home page for the month of March.
And please pass this request along to other groups and help publicize BDS to your members, constituents, and the general public.
We also invite you to take part in the March 30 Global BDS Day of Action by organizing and participation in local and regional actions.
Please promote this day of action on your websites and to your mailing lists. For more information, click here
After struggle and sacrifices of over decades, we are at a historical turning point. Poignantly aware of yet another war crime by Israel, concerned citizens and activists around the world are mobilizing. Now is the time to accelerate the international campaign for BDS. This successful strategy has been used in many human rights efforts including the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. With the momentum of world opinion and action, it will also work to end the systematic violation of human rights by Israel.
For more information on the endorsement campaign, please contact Martina at endorsements@bdsmovement.net.
Join the Global BDS Action Day, March 30th launched at the WSF 2009 in Belém
In December 2008, Israel decided to mark the 60thanniversary of its existence the same way it had established itself – perpetrating massacres against the Palestinian people. In 23 days, Israel killed more than 1,300 and injured over 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza. The irony of history is that Israel targeted those Palestinians – and their descendants – whom it had expelled from their homes and pushed into refugee-hood in Gaza in 1948, whose land it has stolen, whom it has oppressed since 1967 by means of a brutal military occupation, and whom it had tried to starve into submission by means of a criminal blockade of food, fuel and electricity in the 18 months preceding the military assault. We cannot wait for Israel to zero in on its next objective. Palestine has today become the test of our indispensable morality and our common humanity.
We therefore call on all to unite our different capacities and struggles in a Global Day of Action in Solidarity with the Palestinian people and for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel on March 30th.
The mobilization coincides with the Palestinian Land Day, the annual commemoration of the 1976 Israeli massacre of Palestinians in the Galilee in struggle against massive land expropriation, and forms part of the Global Week of Action against the Crises and War from March 28 to April 4.
We urge the people and their organizations around the globe to mobilize in concrete and visible BDS actions to make this day a historic step in this new anti-apartheid movementand for the fulfilment of the rights and dignity of the people and the accountability of the powerful. In our March 30thBDS actions, we will particularly focus on:
Boycotts and divestment from Israeli corporations and international corporations that sustain Israeli apartheid and occupation.
Legal action to end Israel’s impunity and prosecute its war criminals through national court cases and international tribunals.
Cancelling and blocking free trade and other preferential agreements with Israel and imposing an arms embargo as the first steps towards fully fledged sanctions against Israel.
The time for the world to fully adopt and implement the Palestinian call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions is NOW. This campaign has to become an urgent part of every struggle for justice and humanity, by adopting widespread action against Israeli products, companies, academic and cultural institutions, sports groups, international corporations supporting Israeli policies of racism, ethnic cleansing and military occupation and pressuring governments for sanctions. It must be sustained until Israel provides free access to Gaza, dismantles the Apartheid Wall and ends its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands; recognizes the right of the Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respects, protects and promotes the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.
For more information click here
For information on how to join the action day and how to develop BDS action in your country, organization and network, please contact the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) at: info@bdsmovement.net
