<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/bds-upholding-our-rights-resisting-ongoing-nakba">https://bdsmovement.net/news/bds-upholding-our-rights-resisting-ongoing-nakba</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">BDS: Upholding our Rights, Resisting the
Ongoing Nakba</h1>
May 15, 2017</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div id="moz-reader-content" class="line-height4" dir="ltr"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page"
xml:base="https://bdsmovement.net/news/bds-upholding-our-rights-resisting-ongoing-nakba">
<div class="field-item even">
<p class="rteindent4" dir="ltr">It is possible…<br>
It is possible at least sometimes…<br>
It is possible especially now<br>
To ride a horse<br>
Inside a prison cell<br>
And run away…<br>
It is possible for prison walls<br>
To disappear.<br>
For the cell to become a distant land<br>
Without frontiers<br>
– <a
href="http://www.thehypertexts.com/Mahmoud%20Darwish%20Poet%20Poetry%20Picture%20Bio.htm">Mahmoud
Darwish</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">May 15, 2017 marks the 69th anniversary of
the<a
href="https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba">
1948 Nakba</a>, the mass expulsion of Palestinians
from their homeland. Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist
paramilitaries, and subsequently Israeli forces, made <a
href="http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/20100118141933.pdf">750,000</a> to
<a
href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_ethnic_cleansing_of_Palestine.html?id=pFxrGQAACAAJ">one
million</a> indigenous Palestinians into refugees to
establish a Jewish-majority state in Palestine.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
National Committee (<a
href="http://www.bdsmovement.net/bnc">BNC</a>) calls
on people of conscience the world over to further
intensify BDS campaigns to end academic, cultural,
sports, military and economic links of complicity with
Israel’s <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/colonialism-and-apartheid/summary">regime
of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid</a>.
This is the most effective means of standing with the
Palestinian people in pursuing our inherent and
UN-stipulated rights, and nonviolently resisting the <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2013/05/continuous-displacement-palestinian/">ongoing</a>,
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/ethnic-cleansing-everyday-reality/16691">intensifying</a>
Nakba.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The Israeli regime today is ruthlessly
pursuing the one constant strategy of its
settler-colonial project —the simultaneous pillage and
colonization of as much Palestinian land as possible and
the <a
href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-palestinian-israel-un-idUKBREA2K1JM20140321">gradual
ethnic cleansing</a> of as many Palestinians as
practical without evoking international sanctions.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Following in the footsteps of all previous
Israeli governments, the current far-right government,
the most openly racist in Israel’s history, is heeding
the words of the Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky who<a
href="http://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf">
wrote</a> in 1923:</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="quote" dir="ltr">Every native population in
the world resists colonists as long as it has the
slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the
danger of being colonised. [...] Zionist colonisation
must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the
native population. Which means that it can proceed and
develop only under the protection of a power that is
independent of the native population—behind an iron
wall, which the native population cannot breach.</p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">Sixty-nine years after the systematic,
premeditated uprooting and dispossession of most of the
indigenous Palestinian Arabs from the land of Palestine
at the hands of Zionist gangs and later the state of
Israel, the Nakba is not over. Israel is intent on
building its “iron wall” in Palestinian minds, not just
our lands, through its sprawling illegal settlements and
concrete walls in the occupied Palestinian territory,
its <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-incremental-genocide-gaza-ghetto/13562">genocidal
siege</a> of over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, its
denial of the <a
href="https://imeu.org/article/the-right-of-return-palestinian-refugees">Palestinian
refugee’s right to return</a>, its <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771">racist
laws</a> and policies against Palestinians inside
Israel, and its escalating, violent ethnic cleansing in
<a
href="https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=773721">Jerusalem</a>,
the <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/ethnic-cleansing-valley/">Jordan
Valley</a> and the <a
href="https://www.adalah.org/uploads/Adalah-Summary-Umm-el-Hieran-Case-12-May-2015.pdf">Naqab
</a>(Negev). It is sparing no brutality in its
relentless, desperate attempts to sear into our
consciousness the futility of resistance and the
vainness of hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The present <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/palestinian-prisoners-enter-4th-week-hunger-strike-call-bds-related-solidarity-action">mass
hunger strike</a> by over one thousand Palestinian
prisoners in Israeli jails and the grassroots support
that it has triggered give us hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The growing support for BDS among
international trade unions, including the most recent
adoption by the <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/norway%E2%80%99s-largest-trade-union-federation-endorses-full-boycott-israel-advance-palestinian-human">Norwegian
Confederation of Trade Unions (LO)</a> -- representing
over 910,000 workers -- of an “international economic,
cultural and academic boycott of Israel” to achieve
comprehensive Palestinian rights, gives us hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The fact the <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.773274">none
of the 26 Oscar nominees</a> offered a free,
$55,000-valued trip by the Israeli government accepted
the propaganda gift and that <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/feb/15/nfl-players-israel-trip-michael-bennett">six
out of eleven National Football League players</a>
turned down a similar Israeli junket gives us hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The BDS movement has succeeded in sharply
raising the price of corporate complicity in Israel’s
crimes against the Palestinian people. It has compelled
companies of the size of <a
href="http://bdsmovement.net/2016/orange-drops-israel-affiliate-13648">Orange
</a>and <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/bds-marks-another-victory-veolia-sells-all-israeli-operations">Veolia
</a>to end their complicity and pushed global giant <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/under-bds-pressure-g4s-ends-most-illegal-business-israel">G4S
</a>to begin exiting the Israeli market. Churches, city
councils and thousands around the world have pledged to
boycott Hewlett Packard (<a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp">HP</a>) for
its deep complicity in Israel’s occupation and
apartheid. This gives us and many human rights campaigns
around the world great hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/historic-decision-barcelona-city-council-votes-end-complicity-israeli-occupation-illegal">Barcelona
</a>municipality’s decision to end complicity with
Israel’s occupation, coming on the heels of tens of
local councils in the Spanish state declaring themselves
“<a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/dozens-spanish-cities-declaring-themselves-free-israeli-apartheid">Israeli
apartheid free zones</a>,” give us hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The divestment by some of the largest
mainline churches in the US, including the United
Methodist Church, the <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/21/us/presbyterians-debating-israeli-occupation-vote-to-divest-holdings.html">Presbyterian
Church USA</a> and the <a
href="https://www.oikoumene.org/en/press-centre/news/united-church-of-christ-calls-for-boycott-and-divestment-from-companies-profiting-in-israels-occupation">United
Church of Christ</a>, from <a
href="http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/israeli-banks-on-ineligible-list-for-pensions-agency">Israeli
banks</a> or complicit international corporations
gives us hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The spread of remarkably effective BDS
campaigns from South Africa to South Korea, from Egypt
to Chile, and from the UK to the US gives us real hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/palestinians-welcome-movement-black-lives-platform">growing
intersectional coalitions</a> that are emerging in
many countries, organically re-connecting the struggle
for Palestinian rights with the diverse international
struggles for racial, economic, gender, climate and
indigenous justice give us unlimited hope.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In 1968, twenty years after the Nakba but
unrelated to it, Dr.<a
href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/08/31/897655/-Forget-Glenn-Remembering-Dr-Martin-Luther-King-Jr-in-his-own-words">
Martin Luther King</a> said, “There can be no justice
without peace and there can be no peace without
justice.” For seven decades, and against all odds,
Palestinians have continued to assert our inalienable
right to self-determination and to genuine peace, which
can only stem from freedom, justice and equality.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But to reach that just peace we realize that
we must nourish our hope for a dignified life with our
boundless commitment to resist injustice, resist apathy
and, crucially, resist their “iron walls” of despair.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In this context, the Palestinian-led, global
BDS movement with its <a
href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/2016-bds-impact-round-up">impressive
growth</a> and unquestionable impact is today an
indispensable component of our popular resistance and
the most promising form of international solidarity with
our struggle for rights.</p>
<p>No iron wall of theirs can suppress or overshadow the
rising sun of our emancipation.</p>
<p><em>The Palestinian BDS National Committee (<a
href="http://bnc.createsend1.com/t/r-l-yudtlyn-l-u/"
target="_blank">BNC</a>) is the largest coalition in
Palestinian civil society. It leads and supports the
global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Visit <a
href="http://bnc.createsend1.com/t/r-l-yudtlyn-l-o/"
target="_blank">www.bdsmovement.net</a> and follow <a
href="https://twitter.com/BDSmovement">@BDSmovement</a></em></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>