Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions on Israel

Palestinians will not go quietly

Originally published in Left Horizons UK.

 

Mic Craig 

Labour Party Northern Ireland

The Guardian reported today (October 24) on a conference in Brussels, backed by the Israeli Government, which pushes for European political parties to sign up to “red lines” that declare BDS (boycott divestment and sanctions) tactics to be fundamentally antisemitic.

The working class in Britain have a history of supporting consumer boycotts and other measures against countries which systematically practice cruel and inhumane treatment of their citizens, based on race.

The Anti-apartheid movement which began in 1959, proposed a boycott of consumer goods exported from South Africa, aimed to highlight the South African government's policy of Apartheid and to persuade western governments to isolate that country's regime.

There is no question of the similarities between the racial policies practiced in South Africa up until 1994 and those of successive Israeli governments. The Sharpeville massacre of 1960, which led to an international outcry, did not result in as many casualties as the brutal attack on Palestinian protesters earlier this year, yet the western media has been less critical of the Israeli Government's actions than it was about Sharpeville.

It took a long time for the Anti-Apartheid movement to persuade governments around the World to oppose the policies of the South African government, even though that government did not have an international support network.

Israel is a major regional power and has much strategic value to western capitalism. It has influence in almost all of the political parties in Europe and the USA and this makes the task of ending Israeli's neo-apartheid regime all the more difficult.

During the Anti-Apartheid campaign against South Africa, the campaigners were not labelled as racist or anti-white, as it would have been totally illogical to have done so. Equally, it defies logic to suggest that those campaigning for an end to the brutal regime of successive Israeli Governments are racist or antisemitic.