Apartheid Week

Ending Business As Usual

By DAVID MANDELZYS
March 4, 2009
Courtesy Of CounterPunch

While families in Gaza continue to mourn and rebuild from the latest massacre perpetrated by the Israeli state, students and community groups around the world are uniting to educate and act in the 5th Annual Israeli Apartheid week. March 1st – 8th, 2009 is marking the annual event in more than 40 cities around the world, including: Palestine, South Africa, the United States, Norway, Venezuela, England and Canada where the week was first held 5 years ago. Like every year, the students and community members organizing the events for the week are working with the fervor and hope that this year will be the last, but with the knowledge that as in years past their hard work and efforts is another step in what is still a long road ahead. Nevertheless these advocates will not rest until they help end Israeli Apartheid, and bring the people of Palestine the right to live as equals in their homeland, free of Israeli oppression and occupation.

The message of Apartheid week is simple; Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) are the non-violent tools organizers are asking the world to use to end Israeli oppression. The call for BDS stems from Palestine itself initiated by 171 civil society organizations, and resembles the international support that helped end South African Apartheid a decade and a half earlier. Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions is the tactic chosen in recognition that Israel, a small state depends on international support in order to maintain the subjugation of the Palestinian people. Calling on the international community to support BDS is simply asking the world to look at Palestinian suffering and say no more. While BDS has been spreading slowly, mostly through grassroots efforts, recently major colleges, universities and unions have adopted BDS resolutions in a wave of support that will hopefully mark the beginning of the end of Israel’s apartheid regime.

Israeli Apartheid is of course not identical to South African Apartheid. As recognized by former American president Jimmy Carter, Israel Apartheid is in some ways worse, and no one is trying to claim that there are no differences in details. Israel Apartheid week highlights Israel’s particular system of ‘apartness,’ and shows how it manifests a constant state of oppression for the Palestinian people in a way the civilized world already said was unacceptable. Holding Israeli policy in Palestine under the magnify glass makes it clear that the settlements, Jewish only roads, checkpoints, military zones, walls, and border controls, have no doubt become a permanent system of separation. Israel is not benevolently trying to protect its citizens, but purposefully setting into action a system to control large portions of Palestinian lands while subjecting the Palestinian people to a form of citizenship devoid of rights or security, in others words, Apartheid. Making the comparison between Israel and South Africa is becoming less and less controversial with not only President Carter speaking out but South African anti-Apartheid leaders Desmond Tutu and Ronnie Karils, Israeli academics Illan Pappe and Uri Davis, UN General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, and other leaders and human rights advocates joining the chorus as well. Thanks in part to campaigns like Israel Apartheid Week this information is finally reaching the public.

Ronnie Kasrils, and Illan Pappe will be amongst those speaking at events this Israel Apartheid week. They will be joining an impressive list of speakers including Palestinian leader, and one of the originators of the BDS campaign, Dr. Omar Barghouti; Palestinian Journalist and activist Laila El-Haddad; American scholar Norman Finkelstein; Canadian academic and First Nations leader Robert Lovelace; Holocaust survivor and author Suzanne Weiss; and many other locally scheduled speakers and panellists.

Despite the non-violent message of BDS, and the list of renowned speakers, there have been attempts on campuses to censor Israel Apartheid week, particularly in Canada where the event originated. At the University of Toronto, an Access to Information request revealed emails between high level administrators conspiring to block room bookings for a pre-Apartheid week planning conference. The emails were exchanged before the Toronto group even requested the rooms clearing any doubt that the official reason given that the rooms were not booked far enough in advance was a cover story. In Ottawa, both Carleton University and the University of Ottawa have banned the Apartheid week poster claiming the image of an attack helicopter with Israel scrawled on it firing at a Palestinian child holding a teddy bear somehow contradicts the Universities’ equity policies. The universities made this decision despite the 430 children killed in Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza. At Toronto’s York University, the group hosting Israel Apartheid Week (Students against Israeli Apartheid) has seen its club status suspended for a month, just before the opening of the week.

These obstacles are nothing that the organizers have not seen before, and as always the commitment and resilience of the students and volunteers running the week will ensure that the events will go ahead as planned. Organizers have come a long way in five years, and there is no doubt that this week will continue, and build until Israeli Apartheid falls. From Palestine, to South Africa to London, Caracas, and New York, come out, take a stand and join this year's Israeli Apartheid week.

For more details and a listing of events in a city near you please visit www.apartheidweek.org