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Join the Boycott Divestment & Sanction (BDS) Campaign

category mashriq / arabia / iraq | community struggles | feature author Wednesday January 26, 2011 21:44author by Ilan S. - Matzpen; A-Infos; Anarchists Against the Wallauthor address Tel Aviv Report this post to the editors

A call to the anarchist movement to join the BDS campaign

featured image
Sticker by the BDS Campaign National Committee

The development of joint struggle together with the Palestinians against suppression and the Occupation, promoted by Matzpen and later by Anarchists Against the Wall, has not been done in the name of some nationalist urge or the illusion of building a Palestinian nationalist entity (so-called "national liberation"), but for simple "Liberation" - an end to Israeli settler colonialism and occupation.

Anarchists from all over the world have joined the ISM (International Solidarity Movement with the Palestinians) as individuals and members of the AAtW already participate in the local and international BDS initiative, as do many anarchist activists all over the world. Now it is time for the international anarchist movement and its various organizations, federations and collectives, to express their solidarity with our struggle by initiating and/or formally joining in BDS activities.

[Castellano] [Italiano] [Ελληνικά]


Join the Boycott Divestment & Sanction (BDS) Campaign

A call to the anarchist movement to join the BDS campaign
(not a call by the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall*)


The Israeli anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist organization in Israel, Matzpen, of which Anarchists Against the Wall (AAtW) is a worthy heir, was the first to expose Israel as the culmination of a settler colonialist project (which continues to the present day) in spite the endorsement the country's establishment received in 1947 which has still not been retracted by the local communist party.

The first BDS call in Israel was initiated by Matzpen during the first year of the first intifada, in February 1988. It called for a boycott of the products of the colonialist settlements (see http://www.matzpen.org/index.asp?p=kria in Hebrew). Then there was an internet petition initiated by Matzpen members in 2001** for "Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions", to punish Israel (a call that Noam Chomsky refused to join, saying it was "too early").

The development of joint struggle together with the Palestinians against suppression and the Occupation, promoted by Matzpen and later by the AAtW, has not been done in the name of some nationalist urge or the illusion of building a Palestinian nationalist entity (so-called "national liberation"), but for simple "Liberation" - an end to Israeli settler colonialism and occupation.

Anarchists from all over the world have joined the ISM (International Solidarity Movement with the Palestinians) as individuals, and have come here to participate in our joint struggle. Members of the AAtW already participate in the local and international BDS initiative, as do many anarchist activists all over the world.

It is high time that the international anarchist movement and its various organizations, federations and collectives, expressed their solidarity with our struggle by initiating and/or formally joining in BDS activities, not only as individuals.

Ilan S.

Member of Matzpen; A-Infos; AAtW
(personal capacity)

http://ilanisagainstwalls.blogspot.com
http://matzpen.org
http://ainfos.ca
http://awalls.org


Notes:

* The Israeli Anarchists Against The Wall do not sign petitions and documents as a group. Accordingly, this appeal is being distributed in a personal capacity and not as a call by the AAtW.

** In April 2001, 35 Israelis and Jews of other nationalities published a call to boycott Israel. See Rachel Giora's article "Milestones in the History of the Israeli BDS Movement" - http://www.scribd.com/doc/44975240/2010-Rachel-Giora-Milestones-in-the-History-of-the-Israeli-BDS-Movement

For more info on the BDS Movement:

Related Link: http://bdsmovement.net

bds2.jpg

author by Ilan S. - AAtW; ainfos; Matzpenpublication date Thu Jan 27, 2011 05:19author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The URL for the boycott call of 2001 is: http://www.matzpun.com/

author by Wayne Price - personal opinionpublication date Thu Jan 27, 2011 09:12author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Anarchists should support the call for a boycott, etc., of Israel. When the pro-Zionists say, "But that is a call to de-legitimize Israel!", we answer, yes it is. We are against all states, and especially a colonial-settler state. This does not mean opposition to the existence of the Israeli Jewish community, *provided* it becomes willing to live peacefully and in equality with the Palestinians and other Arabs.

However, oddly the statement rejects "national liberation," saying," The development of joint struggle together with the Palestinians against suppression and the Occupation,... has not been done in the name of some nationalist urge or the illusion of building a Palestinian nationalist entity (so-called "national liberation"), but for simple "Liberation" - an end to Israeli settler colonialism and occupation."

Well, we anarchists do not believe that a new, independent capitalist nation-state in Palestine will solve the problems kof the Palestinians, which is to say that we are not nationalists. We are for the international revolution of the workers and all opressed as the only solution to the suffering of the Arab workers and peasants. We are internationalists.

But, this does not mean that there is no nation of Palestine or that it is not oppressed and needs to be freed from oppression (that is, have national liberation). We think this freedom can only come through the internaitonal revolution, but that makes us the best defenders of the Palestinian people.

When the statement says, it wants an "end to Israeli settler colonialism and occupation", *whose* land and people are being colonized and occupied?? It is the land and people of the Palestinian nation, no? Or is it someone else who is being colonized and occupied?

author by nestorpublication date Thu Jan 27, 2011 17:50author address author phone Report this post to the editors

I think Wayne you are forcing a point. I'm sure Ilan would agree with your stance - which is, after all, the "traditional" anarchist position that States cause many of the problems and thus cannot provide the answers. The problem is that the expression "national liberation" is a loaded one, where the simple adjective "national" (i.e. of or regarding a nation) is more often than not assumed to mean "nationalist", with all the overtones of supremacism and bigotry that that implies. Then again, even the concept of "nation" is loaded... I can understand Ilan's reluctance to use such terms, but also your reluctance to discard them.

I know from speaking to Ilan that he believes most of the Palestinian villagers in the places AATW work do not care one way or the other about either Israeli or Palestinian States... they simply want the suppression to stop, hence Ilan's use of "liberation", without adjectives.

author by Ilan S. - AAtW; ainfos; Matzpenpublication date Thu Jan 27, 2011 19:25author email ilan at shalif dot comauthor address Tel Avivauthor phone Report this post to the editors

Wayne:
"However, oddly the statement rejects "national liberation," saying," The development of joint struggle together with the Palestinians against suppression and the Occupation,... has not been done in the name of some nationalist urge or the illusion of building a Palestinian nationalist entity (so-called "national liberation"), but for simple "Liberation" - an end to Israeli settler colonialism and occupation."

Ilan
Yes indeed

Wayne
But, this does not mean that there is no nation of Palestine or that it is not oppressed and needs to be freed from oppression (that is, have national liberation).

Ilan

I live in the east of the Mediterranean region called when I was born Palestine-I British mandate. In 1948 part of it became Israel and most indigenous Palestinians transfered from it. The other part was the Jordan state.

About half the Palestinians live in the occupied territories ruled by Israel - non of them treated as free and equal to the Israeli Jews.

Before 1967 the elite of the Palestinians of the west bank and many of the refugees on the east bank of the Jordan wanted to be free from the rule of the Jordanian ruling elite.

After 1967 they wanted their own independent state.

However, the Palestinian nation is composed by lot of people and the will of the majority of them differ from that of the elite of the west bank.

The majority of around Million and a half Palestinians who are Israeli citizens want to remain citizens of Israel - they just want freedom and equality as individuals and as communities.

Most of the Palestinian refugees want to return and live together with the Israeli Jews in one country.

Most of the Palestinians of east Jerusalem and wage slaves of the west bank and Gaza will follow the Israeli Palestinians who will prefer free and equal citizenship in a joint state over a separate Palestinian state in Gaza and west bank.

The Palestinians want to be free of their being refugees more than any wish to have their own mini state.

For sure the immediate struggle is to put end to the Israeli suppression, military rule and for freedom - end of the occupation rule.

They want liberation and right to return - not a mini state the west bank elite will prefer.

Wayne

We think this freedom can only come through the internaitonal revolution, but that makes us the best defenders of the Palestinian people.

Ilan

Freedom is not all or non... There can be more and less freedom within class society and even within occupied regions.

Wayne

When the statement says, it wants an "end to Israeli settler colonialism and occupation", *whose* land and people are being colonized and occupied?? It is the land and people of the Palestinian nation, no? Or is it someone else who is being colonized and occupied?

Ilan

The land at the east of the Mediterranean was inhabited at 1900 by indigenous Arabs. Formal ownership of land is beside the point.

The naZionist settler colonialist project harmed the indigenous Palestinians but the best solution and what the urge of the Palestinians want is not "national liberation" of the west bank and Gaza but the freedom and equality and the right to return... The one democratic state for Jews and Palestinian was the urge for most Palestinians and probably so today.

The two state and "national liberation" of west bank and Gaza is the urge of the Palestinian elite to compromise with the Israeli ruling elite - not that of the masses.

The immediate wish of the Palestinians masses is liberation - the end of the occupation - whatever way it will be done.

To idealize the Palestinian state in the west bank and Gaza as "liberation of the Palestinian nation" is like idealizing the shelter for battered wives.

The Gaza strip after the Israeli detachment is better than what have been there before but it is nothing to idealize or to be very happy about.

Related Link: http://awalls.org
author by Waynepublication date Fri Jan 28, 2011 05:05author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Ilan seems to think that I am supporting "national liberation" as a synonm for "nationalism" which in turn is a synonym for a "seperate Palestinian mini-state." But my last statement (like much I have written over the years) said the *exact opposite!*

The Palestinians are a nation. (Yes they are a socially created nation, as is Israel; what else is there?) Whether "nation" has unpleasant connotations, is irrelevant; so does "race". It is an oppressed nation. Not only are peasants, workers, and small merchants nationally oppressed, but even the rich Palestinians are oppressed as members of an occupied nation by the Zionists (as Ilan has pointed out in the past). The opposite of oppression is liberation. The opposite of national oppression is national liberation.

There are a range of programs for limiting or even ending this national oppression. This includes more civil rights for Arab members of the existing Israeli state, a Palestinian mini-state (or states), and other possibiilities which Ilan mentions. Mostly they boil down to either a (more-or-less) independent Palestinian state or a (more-or-less) unified Israeli/Palestinian state. At the moment, either seems unlikely for now, mainly due to Israeli rigidity. But even if carried out, such programs would not really, fully, liberate the Palestinian people, since they would still be part of the world imperialislt system.

As anarchists, we advocate sepearate or unified (as decided by the Palfestinians) *communities* rather than states, We want this in the context of a libertarian socialist world order, due to the international revolution. This wouild really and fully liberate the Palestinain nation, from national oppression (as well as the Palestinain workers and peasants from their economic exploitation). This is a non-nationalist,i nternationalist, program for national liberation.

author by Ilan S. - AAtW; ainfos; Matzpenpublication date Fri Jan 28, 2011 06:36author email ilan at shalif dot comauthor address Tel Avivauthor phone Report this post to the editors

Nation is an abstract concept. Nation cannot have or not to have freedom. People who re categorized as belonging to a nation can be deprived of freedom or even be killed because of that.

You cannot set a nation free - you can set free people suppressed because they are categorized as belonging to such label.

The replacing of the occupation of Israel by Palestinian state will not set free the Palestinian people. Most of the Palestinians are not there - they are either in Israel, Jordan, or in Lebanon or out of the region.

Any way, the common use of "national liberation" is the end of the rule of people of some nation and allocating them a state their elite will rule instead of the foreign elite.

For sure Most of the Palestinians will choose as a second or third best a Palestinian state over the present order, but they will prefer one state with the Israeli Jews if the suppression and harassment will diminish.

Just as an example of people mind: In time of economic recession it was a wise joke going around in Israel: "Let us declare a war on the United states... they will conquer us and our problems will be over."

Many who still remember it say from time to time that we may be better if the UK mandate will return.

The majority of the Palestinians want liberation and will prefer to have it - if possible, within Israel, over Palestinian state.

author by Waynepublication date Sat Jan 29, 2011 00:59author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Ilan writes: "There is no such thing as nation - it is just a category of people."

How about, "There is no such thing as race, it is just a category of people." Or "There is no such thing as gender, it is just a socially created category built up around a biological basis.." "There is nosuch thing as class..." Etc.

All thee statements are true in one sence. Thee categories are abstractions, which we abstract (take out) from the infinite complexity of social reality. The question is, are they useful categories or not? The mass of people agree that these categories are real and act on these beliefs. So we have to deal with them. Nations are real because they are categories of people.

As for the rest, Ilan does not respond to my arguments at all. Palestinians may prefer other things to a mini-state, but they want some end to their oppression as Palestinains, that is, they want some form of national liberation.

But as Nestor writes, Ilan and I do not really disagree on the political fundamentals. We are arguing over terms and formulations.

author by Michael Romandelpublication date Wed Feb 16, 2011 08:39author email michaelromandel at msn dot comauthor address author phone Report this post to the editors

The only problem I have with BDS is that it is based on a very petit-bourgeois way of doing politics. I advocate shipping and dock workers' boycotts of Israeli goods, but the people in Toronto who are involved in BDS campaigns seem to like telling people not to shop at Indigo/Chapters and standing in front of liquor stores telling people not to buy certain kinds of wine. Honestly, the working class have very little purchasing power, and can't effect world politics as consumers. We also can't trust capitalist governments and states to give in to our demands to not support Israel or not do trade with them, and if we can build to the point where we actually can scare them into doing this, then we might as well have a workers' revolution, seeing as that is the kind of numbers it would take to do this.

I also think there are ways to bring up boycotting Israel and Israeli goods in union and political meetings without supporting BDS. We also have to remember that it was not boycott campaigns by westerners, workers or not, that brought down the apartheid regime in South Africa, but the mobilization of workers in South Africa itself. All the campaigns contributed very little materially to this, though they did show those struggling in South Africa that people here supported them. What we can show to the people of Palestine is that there are working class people here who support their struggle for national liberation on a strong class basis. This will help the toiling people of Palestine to feel emboldened that they can carry the struggle forward against both the Palestinian and Israeli bourgeoisie.

author by Waynepublication date Thu Feb 17, 2011 04:07author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Michael,

I participated in the boycot campaign against apartheid Sout Africa and felt that it was useful. It did not seriously interfere with the South African economy, but it had a political and psychological effect. As you admit, it told African workers that people throughout the world were on their side, and it had an impact even on the whites, telling them that they were rejected by decent people everywhere. As Mandela put it, "South Aftica was the skunk of the world." It played a role in the eventual overturn of apartheid.

You are absolutely right in saying that a worker's boycot of Isreaeli goods would be even better and more effective, and we should raise this wherever we can. Meanwhile, this is the boycott we have, and we anarchists should support it.

author by RoBpublication date Fri Feb 18, 2011 05:24author address author phone Report this post to the editors

One really strong statement of support for BDS that put organized labor in the forefront is the Cairo Declaration [http://cairodeclaration.org/]. Which was made by groups who attempted to bring aid to Gaza via Egypt in Dec '09/Jan '10 as part of the George Galloway initiated Viva Palestina caravan. Its first of 7 commitments is:

"An international speaking tour in the first 6 months of 2010 by Palestinian and South African trade unionists and civil society activists, to be joined by trade unionists and activists committed to this programme within the countries toured, to take mass education on BDS directly to the trade union membership and wider public internationally;"

I am not aware that this has really happened, but the support for the idea came from participants from COSATU, the South African Trade Union. Where I live the leadership of the AFL-CIO is relatively progressive, in supporting immigrant rights, and anti-war initiatives, but they are committed zionists and have canceled the use of their spaces for events in solidarity with Palestinian causes.

I have no idea if folks are still trying to make this tour happen, but it would be an amazing step in the right direction.

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