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On the path to dismantling apartheid

BDS impacts in the second half of 2022.

2022 marks the year in which debate about Israel’s apartheid regime became mainstream. Following a string of groundbreaking reports from B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights organisations, Amnesty International’s February report was covered in every major newspaper around the world. Having led grassroots campaigning against Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and occupation for over 17 years, the BDS movement is finally watching history in the making. Still, your support is needed now more than ever as apartheid Israel intensifies its criminal oppression.

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As we work towards a broad, global, Palestinian-led anti-apartheid movement, we take a look back at some highlights in our struggle for Palestinian rights in the second half of 2022!

  • Following a months-long highly-effective campaign led by local Uruguayan groups and compelling letters from Palestinian football teams, including those whose players have lost lives and limbs to Israeli bullets, Uruguay’s national football team canceled its World Cup training in apartheid Israel.

  • Hundreds of #MusiciansForPalestine endorsed our call to boycott apartheid Israel’s complicit cultural sector.

  • Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union voted to support the right of its 26,000 members to engage in BDS for Palestinian rights, to refuse Israeli government-sponsored tours to apartheid Israel, and to oppose adoption of policies prohibiting criticism of Israel, including IHRA.

  • After hearing from fans, fellow artists, and human rights defenders, Mexican acoustic guitar duo, Rodrigo y Gabriela, canceled their Tel Aviv concert. This came just hours before apartheid Israel launched its brutal assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, killing more than 40 Palestinians, including 15 children, and injuring hundreds.

  • Two firms from Oman and Kuwait withdrew from the 2022 Bahrain Air Show which gave six Israeli companies the opportunity to promote weapons and tech "field-tested" on Palestinians.

  • The Palestine solidarity movement gained another Nobel Prize laureate: French author Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is a supporter of our nonviolent struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality, and endorses impactful measures to hold accountable Israel’s apartheid regime and complicit cultural institutions.

  • Also in France, 38 deputies tabled a resolution in parliament "condemning the institutionalization by Israel of an apartheid regime against the Palestinian people”.

Support our movement for freedom, justice and equality to even further grow.

  • After a year of engagement with local grassroots groups, and fan clubs including the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) and La Brigada Del Pueblo, the Oakland Roots Sports Club became the first US sports team to heed the Palestinian call to drop PUMA.
     
  • Also in the US, Case Western Reserve University Undergrad Student Government voted to divest from companies complicit in Israeli apartheid, including Elbit Systems, HP, PUMA, AXA, and G4S.
     
  • Following a thorough consultation process, the University of Melbourne Student Union, representing 30,000 students, endorsed the Palestinian BDS call, including the boycott of complicit Israeli academic institutions. UMSU thus maintained its "130-year tradition of students standing up for human rights”.
     
  • Six US-based queer and trans artists refused lucrative work with PUMA for its Pride campaign in solidarity with the Palestinian call to Boycott PUMA over its complicity in Israeli apartheid. The organisation these artists work with, Queer|Art, stood with them and endorsed the Palestinian BDS call.
     
  • In solidarity with Palestinians, multiple artists withdrew from Berlin’s Pop Kultur festival due to its partnership with apartheid Israel.
     
  • Hundreds of Israeli filmmakers pledged to boycott the so-called Shomron/Samaria Film Fund, stating it “is part and parcel of the mechanisms of apartheid”.

These BDS impacts are just a snapshot of where we stand today. Thank you for taking action and for continuing to stand in solidarity with our non-violent struggle against apartheid, settler colonialism and occupation and for the Palestinian people’s freedom, justice and equality!


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