What do we want?

Setting aside the incoherent abusers, thanks to everyone else who made considerate comments - both positive and negative - about the tennis protests on the previous blog.

I'd like to be able to respond individually to the rational criticism but unfortunately I don't have time. (I don't usually reply to comments for the same reason but also because I've had my say in posting the blog)

The most pleasing aspect of the comments is that while many people are very critical of the decision to direct protest at Peer they are also critical of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian people.

This is very important because the issue is not about John Minto, the protestors or Shahar Peer. The most important outcome will be the extent to which the protests have generated debate which gives New Zealanders a chance to look at the Middle East with fresh eyes. If it were a popularity contest the protestors would be the losers but the issue is about shifting opinion in New Zealand so there is a better understanding of the Palestinian struggle.

The public reaction would have been significantly different had New Zealanders known that not only did Shahar Peer enlist for the Israeli army rather than joining the "refuseniks" (who refuse to do military service because they don't want to take part in the oppression of Palestinians) but she also was a willing poster girl for army recruitment. Her enlistment was a huge media event. She posed in army uniform on an Israeli tank for the media and in her first week took part in a video production giving her impressions of the experience. She said enlisting was better than playing tennis against Maria Sharapova.

She did all this for an Israeli army which is widely seen, and rightly so, as a state sponsored terrorist organisation with a horrendous record of humiliation, abuse and killing of Palestinians.

In terms of the boycott she was a legitimate focus because she is a representative of Israel, and a willing one at that, just as golfer Michael Campbell or the All Blacks as professionals are seen to represent and carry the aspirations of New Zealanders.

Many people have questioned the basis of the call to boycott Israel. I gave a brief outline in the last blog but it's clearly an area of serious dispute for many so I'm posting here a more detailed outline of the case by way of notes prepared by Mike Treen, a Global Peace and Justice Auckland spokesperson. They deserve reasoned consideration and response.

1)      Boycott, Divestment and  Sanctions (BDS) is a demand by the Palestinian people made in an appeal issued in July 2005 by Palestinian civil society. More than 170 bodies, including trade unions, political and social organizations, and women's and youth groups. Its signatories represented all three components of the Palestinian nation: refugees, those living under occupation and Palestinian citizens of Israel. It has support from Jewish Israeli advocates of genuine peace. They demand that Israel:

a. End its occupation of all Arab lands, dismantle the Wall and free all Palestinian and Arab political prisoners;

b. Recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality;

c. Respect, protect and promote the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN General Assembly resolution 194.

2)      In 2004 the International court of Justice (ICJ) declared illegal the "Separation Wall" and settlement-colonies Israel is building on Palestinian occupied land. The ICJ also ruled that Palestinians whose lives have been damaged must be compensated and that all nations have an "obligation to ensure Israel complies with international law."

3)      In September UK Unions supported the initiation of a mass boycott movement, divestment and sanctions. Similar calls have been issued by union federations in South Africa, Norway, Ireland and Scotland.

4)      In the midst of the assault on Gaza last year 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It called for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the anti-apartheid struggle. "the boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves... This international backing must stop."

5)      The "Apartheid" comparison is legitimate as the consequences of an occupation that has lasted over 40 years that has seen two generations of Palestinians grow up in the occupied territories effectively denied rights of citizenship. Any rights associated with the territory nominally under Palestinian control is effectively circumscribed in much the same way the Bantustans were in South Africa. The comparison has been made by former US President Jimmy Carter, the Israeli Human Rights group B'Tselem, and Bishop Tutu of South Africa. The editorial board of Israel's leading newspaper Ha'aretz observed in September 2006 that "the apartheid regime in the territories remains intact: millions of Palestinians are living without rights, freedom of movement or a livelihood, under the yoke of ongoing Israeli occupation." Chris Hedges, Foreign Correspondent of the New York Times wrote in December 2006: "Palestinians in Gaza live encased in a squalid, overcrowded ghetto, surrounded by the Israeli military and a massive electric fence, unable to leave or enter the strip and under daily assault...This is more than apartheid."

6)      A campaign around BDS of Israel has a power in NZ precisely because of its association with similar, successful campaigns against South African apartheid.

7)      The rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel are increasingly circumscribed as the Israeli state insists on its "Jewish" character to the exclusion of the Palestinians. This affects access to health, education, water, housing and land. Acceptance of the Jewish character of the state is now an Israeli pre-condition of the renewed peace talks' farce.

8)      Israel now has 300,000 settlers in 200 plus settlements on the West bank plus at least 180,000 more settlers in East Jerusalem. Some are twice the size of Manhattan with their own schools, universities, shopping malls and billions of dollars invested in infrastructure and a segregated, for-Jews-only highway system, 300 kilometres long, cutting up the West Bank with Palestinians imprisoned between these concrete and asphalt barriers.

9)      For the two-state solution to remain valid -there must be an unconditional withdrawal to the 1967 borders with no conditions. The settlements must be dismantled.

10)  Failure to do so will increasingly raise the other legitimate alternative future - a unitary, democratic and secular state over the whole territory with equal rights for all its citizens.

11)  The existing state of Israel justifies its continuing war and occupation of Palestine on the basis that some people in these territories and abroad won't recognize the state of Israel. This is simply another version of the Big Lie. Every faction in Palestine recognizes the "fact" of Israel in its pre-1967 border (including Hamas).  Israel itself, however, will not recognize its own borders. There is no Israeli map with the 1967 border delineated. East Jerusalem has been annexed. The Apartheid Wall follows no border. All Israel's political leaders refer to the West Bank as "Judea and Samaria". The continuing existence of the settlements is declared to be non-negotiable. There is no acceptance of Palestinian refugees right of return (a condition for UN recognition of Israel in 1948). There is no "recognition" of the Palestinian right to even establish a state let alone what borders it may have. Now Israeli leaders insist that not just the "State of Israel" that must be recognized but the "Jewish" character of that state - ie the eternal dispossession of the Palestinian refugees and second class status of Palestinian citizens.

12)  The Palestinian organizations which have endorsed the appeal for a BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel include:

• Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine
• General Union of Palestinian Workers
• Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)
• Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO, 132 member organizations)
• Federation of Independent Trade Unions
• Union of Arab Community Based Associations (Ittijah, 74 member organizations)
• Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition (12 member organizations)
• Occupied Palestine and Golan Heights Initiative (16 member organizations)
• General Union of Palestinian Women
• Palestinian Farmers Union
• Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW, 13 member organizations, 50 popular committees)
• Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
• National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba (20 member organizations)
• Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ, 18 member organizations)
• Coalition for Jerusalem (41 member organizations)
• Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations
• Palestinian Economic Monitor

With the background described above it is both appropriate and compelling for New Zealanders to give support to the BDS campaign.

Finally to all those who think there are so many other issues I should protest about - please don't expect me to take the lead on everything. Take the lead yourself and ask others, myself included, to join you.

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