BDS is Lawful – Settlements & Israel are Integral
Yes well not quite. What the opinion says is that boycotting Israeli settlements, which are a living example of the ban, in the 4th Geneva Convention, against an occupying power introducing its settlers into the territory it is occupying, is legal. But because there is no longer any legal difference in Israel between the settlements and Israel pre-1967, a Boycott of Israeli institutions and produce is now legal.
But in Israel there is no differentiation between Israel ‘proper’ and the settlements. Who knows where Jerusalem ends and the settlements begin? The Apartheid Wall, in seizing great chunks of the West Bank, has erased the Green Line (which is not recognised on Israeli maps anyway). The logic is clear. Boycotting Israel is not only legal but it makes sense!
And this month the Campaign to Boycott Israel is 7 years old. The child is doing well, growing stronger and gaining more support by the hour. It has also
Tony Greenstein
Israeli settlements can face trade bans, says counsel
Donald Macintyre / The Independent
Jerusalem
Monday 09 July 2012
European governments, including Britain’s, have received legal opinion from a leading international counsel who argues they would be fully within their rights to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The formal opinion from James Crawford, professor of international law at Cambridge University, is likely to inject fresh momentum into campaigns in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for a ban, at a time when some EU member states are examining ways of hardening their position on the imports of settlement produce.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, a position upheld by all EU member states.
In particular the opinion will be seen as challenging received wisdom in official circles that for a state such as Britain to ban imports of settlement produce, or prohibit banks from financing settlement activity, would contravene European or global trade law. Professor Crawford says in his 60-page opinion, shown to senior officials of EU member states in the past few months and seen by The Independent, that “there do not appear to be any EC laws which could be breached by a member state taking the decision to ban the import of settlement produce on public policy grounds.”
He argues that member states wishing to block the import of produce from settlements could “have recourse” to the EU’s Association Agreement with Israel, which stipulates that the agreement “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.” He argues that, by executing such a ban on trade with settlements, the EU would not be in breach of its World Trade Organisation obligations since, “as a matter of international law, the West Bank and Gaza cannot be considered to be Israel’s territory”.
The opinion will be published this week by the Trades Union Congress, which has mounted a sustained campaign for a ban on settlement trade – as distinct from a boycott of Israel itself, which the TUC does not support.
Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, said that the UK had made a “real difference” by ensuring supermarket goods from settlements were properly labelled.
But, adding that a ban was needed, he said that every settlement weakened the hope of a Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel. “Governments across Europe agree with this, but they need to move beyond words to practical action.”
Denmark and Sweden, as well as South Africa, are considering following the UK lead on labelling, while the Irish government has suggested the EU should consider an all-out ban on settlement goods.
Professor Crawford’s opinion rejects arguments that EU member states are obliged – rather than merely able – to enforce a ban.
But it suggests that states – as distinct from private sector corporations – which directly buy produce from settlements or provide financial or other assistance, for example, could be liable to penalties under international law.
It could also indirectly renew focus on the £1m paid by the European Commission through a scientific co-operation fund to Ahava, the prominent Israeli Dead Sea cosmetics company, which has a mineral extraction facility in the occupied West Bank.
Although the commission suggests it may review the criteria for a successor fund running from 2013, it has repeatedly told MEPs that there is no legal impediment to the grants.
BDS at 7! – Celebrating, reflecting and further mainstreaming
Occupied
Palestine, 9 July 2012 – Seven years after the Palestinian civil
society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel
was launched, the global BDS campaign has become stronger, more
widespread, more effective and certainly more diverse than ever—a true
cause for celebration by all those groups and conscientious citizens of
the world who contributed to this success. However, Israel’s
intensifying violations of international law and basic Palestinian
rights, the direct threat Israel poses to the freedom of peoples across
the region, and the impunity that Israel still enjoys are cause for
reflection and the continuous fine-tuning of our strategies to further
spread BDS and further isolate Israel as a world pariah, just as South
Africa was under apartheid.
to the BDS movement, the struggle for the basic rights of the entire
Palestinian people has taken a major leap during these last seven years,
reaching wide audiences and achieving concrete achievements in major
European countries, South Africa, Latin America, India, the Arab world,
Australia, New Zealand and even North America. Following on from a
similar round up published to mark five years of BDS, the Palestinian BDS National Committee,
the broad Palestinian civil society coalition, has put together the
following selection of highlights gives a taste of the spectacular
growth of BDS over the last two years.
Israeli products and campaigns against companies that export and sell
Israeli products, particularly those implicated in Israel’s illegal
colonies in the occupied Palestinian territory, have not only raised
awareness among ordinary citizens in countless cities across the world
but led to significant damage to complicit Israeli companies:
the end of 2011, following a campaign of blockades, demonstrations,
lobbying of supermarkets and governments, popular boycotts and legal
action in more than 13 countries across Europe. The campaign against the
company was a major factor behind the lack of investors’ interest to
salvage it.
end trade with companies that source products from Israel’s illegal
settlements, following a determined campaign by Co-Op members.
Campaigners are working to pressure other supermarkets to adopt a
similarly comprehensive position. Many supermarkets across Europe already claim not to sell produce from illegal settlements.
A sustained campaign against Ahava, the Israeli cosmetics company
situated in an illegal Israeli colony, forced the company to close its flagship London store and retailers in the UK, Norway,Japan and Canada to announce boycotts of the company.
by the integral role that Israeli academic institutions play in
developing the knowledge and technology behind Israeli occupation,
colonization and apartheid, and planning and justifying Israel’s worst
crimes, academic boycott campaigns have spread to campuses across the world:
Campaigns against EU-funded collaboration with private Israeli
companies and Israeli universities have sprung up at campuses across
Europe in response to a call from Palestinian academics and civil society.
Israel’s attempts to whitewash its system of colonization, occupation
and apartheid using culture is increasingly thwarted by a highly
visible cultural boycott:
especially musicians and filmmakers — and writers have refused to
perform in Israel or cancelled scheduled performances following pressure
from the BDS movement including Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc Godard,
Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron, Carlos Santana, Devendra Banhart,
Faithless, the Pixies, Cassandra Wilson, Cat Power, Zakir Hussain.
Naomi Klein, John Berger, Judith Butler, Etienne Balibar, Ken Loach,
Arundhati Roy, Angela Davis, Sarah Schulman, among others.
them to be part of Israel’s cultural public relations offensive.
Protests and campaigns against state-backed performances — such as those
by the Batsheva dance company, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra,
Habima theater, and the Jerusalem Quartet — are now common place in
Europe and North America, forcing some cultural venues to defend or
retract their decision to host representatives of Israel and persuading
others not to invite state-backed Israeli artists at all.
imprisoned Palestinian national football team player Mahmoud Sarsak,
who was detained and subsequently held without trial by Israel in 2009
while attempting to leave Gaza to play an international match was met
with calls for his release by footballing superstars and
FIFA, the international football federation. Sports clubs in Gaza and
footballing legend Eric Cantona have criticized the European football
association for awarding Israel the right to host the 2013 under-21 football tournament.
whitewashes Israel’s illegal occupation of Jerusalem. Calls for
boycotting Adidas were issued by the Council of Arab Sports Ministers
and by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC).
are raising the price of corporate complicity with Israeli violations
of international law and changing corporate attitudes towards doing
business with Israel:
the Jerusalem Light Rail. Local municipalities across Europe and
Australia have decided not to award Veolia contracts worth at least $14 billion following
BDS campaigns. An increasing number of municipal authorities have
implemented policies excluding Veolia from bidding on local contracts.
Several European banks have divested from
the company as well. Veolia has been forced to admit the damage the BDS
campaign has caused it and subsequently announced plans to withdraw
from some illegal Israeli projects.
MSCI-ESG, an influential ethical investment index over the use of its
bulldozers and equipment to destroy Palestinian homes. This led to TIAA-CREF,
the US pension fund giant targeted by a wide US civil society
coalition, removing the company from its Social Choice Funds.
over its contract with the Israeli Prison Service and its resulting
complicity with the detention of Palestinian political prisoners.
to ever-increasing public anger with Israel’s occupation and denial of
basic Palestinian rights, a number of governments have started to
introduce sanctions against Israel:
both announced decisions to suspend military relations with Israel and
Turkey is pursuing legal action against Israel over its killing of 9
Turkish citizens on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010. Bolivia, Venezuela,
Qatar, Mauritania and several other countries also took action in
response to the attack.
July was supported by Nobel Peace Prize winners Archbishop Desmond
Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and
civil society groups around the world representing millions of people.
gone from strength to strength, forcing the leaders of all of the major
UK political parties, including Prime Minister David Cameron, to end their patronage of the organization, successfully persuading the authorities in the Swiss town of Geneva to disassociate the city from the JNF and winning support of numerous mainstream organizations.
national trade union federations in South Africa, UK, Scotland,
Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the Basque Country, Brazil and other
countries across Latin America, in addition to scores of national and
local unions. Africa’s largest trade union federation, ITUC-Africa –
representing 15 million workers from 56 African trade union federations
has endorsed BDS and the European Trade Union Congress is currently
taking action against produce from illegal Israeli settlements.
Some major trade unions, particularly in Europe, are taking steps to
sever links with the Histadrut, the colonial Israeli trade union entity
that has always played a key role in Israel’s system of oppression over
the Palestinian people. Most recently, Unison, the UK’s second largest
trade union with 1.3 million members, voted to reaffirm its position of suspended relations with the Histadrut.
in shares of Caterpillar, targeted over its sale of bulldozers to
Israel that are used to violate Palestinian rights. The worldwide United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church in the US have both called on their members to boycott produce from illegal Israeli settlements.
In North America, students are developing sophisticated and widely
supported campus divestment initiatives, with student unions in Regina and Carleton in Canada and National Movímíento Estudíantíl Chícan@ de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A), the largest association of Latin@ youth in the US, and the student government at University of Massachusetts-Boston voting
to support divestment and other BDS initiatives. The first student-led
BDS U.S. national conference was held at the University of Pennsylvania
earlier this year following a successful national student conference at
Columbia University last year.
campaigns that have succeeded in ending relationships between
universities and Ahava and Eden Springs. Edinburgh University Student
Association voted to end its contract with G4S.
the eruption of peoples’ upheavals across the Arab world, or what came
to be known as the Arab Spring, massive solidarity with Palestinian
rights in Arab countries is increasingly being channeled in effective
BDS campaigns, especially in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and Kuwait.
of fear of the impact of BDS. Some Zionist leaders are also starting to
call for change in Israeli policies out of fear of BDS. The leading
Israeli think tank the Reut Institute has spoken of BDS as a “strategic
threat”, prompting the Israeli government to pass a draconian law forbidding any citizen from supporting BDS or
any partial boycott. There is a real and growing fear within Israel
that it is becoming a pariah state in the way that South Africa once
was.
the backdrop of continued success and the reactions from Israel, we
look forward to working with trade unions, NGOs, faith groups,
solidarity organizations, people’s movements and people of conscience
all over the world to continue to spread BDS as an effective and morally
compelling tool in support of the Palestinian struggle for
comprehensive rights. Israel realizes it and so do we: BDS is spreading
and having a significant impact on Israel’s occupation, colonization and
apartheid; it is time to push even further into the mainstream to
entrench Israel’s pariah status. Only thus can Palestinians regain their
rights and exercise self-determination, and without that there can
never be a just and sustainable peace in the entire region.
