The year 2015 will be
remembered as the year that Palestinian popular resistance spread across
historic Palestine and that saw tens of thousands of Palestinians take to the
streets to resist and confront Israel’s regime of occupation,
settler-colonialism and apartheid.
Ten years
since the launch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, 2015
was also a landmark year for BDS, as our detailed
round-up of the year shows.
To all of
the amazing people whose commitment and tireless efforts are making this happen:
thank you. Our collective achievements inspire us, motivate us and give us
hope.
Let’s
continue to build our movement in support of Palestinian freedom, justice and
equality.
If you can, please
donate to our fundraising appeal to help us grow our movement even further in
2016. We're delighted to be offering
some amazing Palesitnian spoken word poetry books and downloads as part of our
fundraiser - go take a
look!
If you'd like to share it, you can find this list online at http://bdsmovement.net/2015/7-ways-our-movement-broke-new-ground-13634.
If you'd like to share it, you can find this list online at http://bdsmovement.net/2015/7-ways-our-movement-broke-new-ground-13634.
1. We showed our movement can have a real economic impact on Israel
The authors
of a UN
report said that BDS was a key factor behind the 46%
drop in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014. The World
Bank cited BDS as a key factor behind the 24% drop in
Palestinian imports from Israel. The Israeli government and the Rand Corporation
both published reports predicting that BDS will cost Israel billions of
dollars.
Moody’s, a leading credit ratings agency, said “the Israeli economy could suffer should BDS gain greater
traction.”
One senior
Israeli businessman even complained that the growing strength of the BDS
movement means that major European companies now avoid investing in Israel.
2. We won our incredible campaign against Veolia
French
corporate giant Veolia sold off all of its businesses in Israel. This was a
direct result of our 7-year campaign against its role in infrastructure projects
for illegal Israeli settlements that cost it more than $20
billion in lost tenders and contracts. Our grassroots
organising persuaded a corporate giant to completely abandon
Israel!
And it’s
not just Veolia: telecoms giant Orange responded to BDS pressure in France,
Egypt and elsewhere by saying it will pull out of Israel by 2017. G4S has
started talking about ending its contract with the Israeli prison service.
3. 1000+ artists joined the cultural boycott
Prominent
names like Lauryn Hill and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth said they won’t
perform in Israel, and more than 1000 artists across Ireland, the UK, the US and Belgium have said they support the cultural boycott of Israel.
4. The academic boycott went more mainstream across the world
Israeli
universities play a key role in planning and whitewashing Israel’s crimes but
now academics across the world are taking effective action.
Major
academic associations in the US including the American
Anthropological Association conference and the US
National Women’s Studies Association have voted to endorse BDS.
More than 500
UK academics, 450
Belgian academics, 1,600 academics and academic staff in Spain and more than 200 South
African academics have all signed statements in
support of the academic boycott.5. Our movement is spreading to new areas and winning new support
New BDS
coalitions have been established in Malaysia and Egypt and BDS is growing
rapidly in Latin America and the Arab world.
Major trade
union bodies like the Connecticut
branch of AFL-CIO and the Quebec
Confederation
of National Trade Unions joined the dozens of
national trade unions that already support BDS.
6. Justice for Palestine has become a key issue for students and youth across the world
Divestment
motions were passed at Stanford, Princeton, the University of California and 6
other US campuses, and the UK National Union of Students joined the 30+
individual campus student unions that already support BDS.
Israeli
Apartheid Week took place in more than 150 cities. Student groups are getting
organised across Europe, Canada, South Africa and Latin
America.
7. Israel’s reaction shows that our “soft” power is having a real impact
Israel
knows it is losing the argument and is throwing everything it has at sabotaging
our movement, dedicating money, government staff and apparently even its
security services to undermining BDS. Israel is exporting its mentality of
repression and getting its allies in the west to run McCarthyite attacks on free
speech in the US, France, the UK, Italy, Canada and elsewhere.
One has to
be inspired to inspire others. In the BDS movement, we are definitely inspired,
motivated and full of hope. Help us not only in seeking freedom, justice and
equality for the Palestinian people but also in proving that the hegemonic
powers that be around the world can also be held to account in the pursuit of
justice everywhere.
Reference:
BDS
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