BDS: The Palestinians Inclusive Protest Against The Violence of Apartheid
When we, Palestinian Civil Society, issued our 2015 BDS call, we were counting on people of conscience, rather than governments and complicit corporations. Most of us argued that we needed to address ordinary people buying goods in supermarkets, artists, cultural figures, academics, sportsmen etc. We, in fact, had our own definition of the “International Community” as opposed to that of the traditional leadership, be it on the right or on the left. Our “International Community” consisted of civil society, churches, pension funds, municipalities, clubs, music bands, universities and the like.
We wanted to isolate Israel’s regime of oppression as well as corporations and institutions that are implicated in its denial of Palestinian rights under international law. We made it absolutely clear that we wanted the movement to be inclusive and be anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.