Occupied Palestine, 1 March 2010 – The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) salutes the organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), which will take place in over 40 cities this year. For the first time, IAW will see activities in Gaza City, where Palestinians continue to resist Israel”s illegal blockade which has transferred the occupied Gaza Strip into the world’s largest prison camp. Also for the first time, students in Beirut have organized the first IAW in the Arab world outside Palestine. This in addition to IAW activities undertaken in dozens of cities in South Africa, Europe and North America. IAW has become a sign of the growing solidarity across borders in our global struggle against racism and oppression.
Whereas student and youth movements played a key role in ending Apartheid in South Africa, IAW is currently one of the most important tools to educate people about the nature of Israel as a colonial apartheid system and to build on the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. We hope that your participation in IAW this year will only be a step forward in your concrete and effective campaigns to pressure apartheid Israel to comply with international law.
We also take this opportunity to salute our sisters and brothers from around the world who are also struggling against racism, colonialism and oppression. From the landless peoples’ movements of South Africa and Latin America, to the indigenous sovereignty struggles of the original nations of the Americas and Australia, to struggles of racialized and migrant communities the world over: our struggle is one and the same, a struggle for human dignity that will no doubt, one day, be victorious.
In solidarity for freedom, justice, and self-determination
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
