Kana’an eBulletin – Volume VIII – Issue 1750
The authors of the following appeal are Israeli citizens and Jews of other nationalities whose families have been victims of racism and genocide in past generations, and who feel they cannot remain silent.
This appeal, the first to call on-line for a boycott against Israel, was posted in April of 2001. Since then, the situation in the Israeli-occupied territories (OTs) has progressively worsened. On 27 December 2008 Israel has embarked on its most rabid and violent rampage since the Nakba of 1948 and the 1967 occupation, murdering in cold blood, within less than a day, around 300 people, most of whom are innocent civilians. We call on all humanity to put an immediate stop to the war crimes of this Middle Eastern colonialist
aggressor.
In the West Bank, the Palestinians have been imprisoned in ghettos separated by the Wall and numerous roadblocks. In Gaza, The Sharon government executed its “unilateral separation” plan, which turned the entire area into a huge prison camp, under daily bombardment by Israel, now lacking in essential services.
The Olmert government started a massive war of destruction in Lebanon. It then used the international focus on Lebanon to increase the oppression in the OTs. This time, the war machine is being run, once again, by a ³dovish Labour² minister.
Internationally-supervised elections in the OTs resulted in a popularly elected Hamas government. The democratic result then led to an Israeli-American move to boycott this government and hamstring it completely, by collectively punishing the population.
As the Israeli government continues to make life with honour and freedom impossible for all Palestinians, reducing their existence to bare survival and depopulating more territories, it is now more important than ever for world public opinion to put the pressure of grass-roots boycott on Israel. We call on all decent-minded people all around the globe to support our call for a boycott of Israeli exports and tourism. (17 October 2006, 28 December 2008)
Please sign the appeal and encourage your friends to sign it:
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Appeal (April, 2001)
After six months of relentless military oppression of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories, the government of Israel has made daily life even more intolerable for the Palestinians by imposing a physical siege on their villages and towns. This siege has brought upon the Palestinians a complete cessation of “normal” life. For the majority of them there is no going to work, no shopping for food and other necessities, no medical services, and in many cases no water or electricity.
In 1948 the state of Israel dispossessed the Palestinians, evicted hundreds of thousands of them from their homes into refugee camps and did not allow them to return when the war ended. The same state is now preventing the victims of 1948 from having even the most basic services in their refugee camps and remaining villages and towns.
The inhumane oppressor hopes that starving will help force the Palestinians to surrender, without having any “negative public opinion problems” that live ammunition may have had in Western media. Indeed, public opinion in the West has largely relaxed any protest against the Israeli government’s policies of killing civilians –men, women and children– since much of the killing is now being done away from the TV cameras. Human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority have also helped Israel to falsely portray itself again as the righteous victim.
We call on the world community to organize and boycott Israeli industrial and agricultural exports and goods, as well as leisure tourism, in the hope that it will have the same positive result that the boycott of South Africa had on Apartheid.
This boycott should remain in force as long as Israel controls any part of the territories it occupied in 1967. Those who squash the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians must be made to feel the consequences of their own bitter medicine.
We urge every recipient of this appeal, irrespective of origin and nationality, to:
1. Start practicing the boycott on a personal level immediately, and make sure that the steps taken are known in the community (for example: tell your shopkeeper why you will not buy Israeli products; avoid leisure travel to Israel).
2. Add your name to the appeal, circulate it to your friends, and do whatever you can to have it endorsed by groups concerned about human rights.
3. Organize activities to put pressure on your government to cut economic and commercial ties with Israel and to rescind preferential economic treaties with Israel.