Three weeks after Israel’s latest assault on the Gaza Strip concluded, Israeli military and political leaders attended a conference next to Ben Gurion Airport to sell the successes of what Israel dubbed Operation Protective Edge, which killed more than 2,200 Palestinians including 521 children. The annual conference, named “Israel Unmanned Systems 2014,” took place in business-as-usual atmosphere — even with a complimentary beer keg. But the fare was anything but humdrum.

Palestinian efforts to encourage a boycott of Israel, modeled on the South African anti-apartheid global campaign, is gaining momentum as a democratic movement

On 9 August, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide took to the streets in response to a call from Palestinian civil society in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, National Committee (BNC), for a Day of Rage.

This mobilization comes as grassroots pressure mounts on complicit Western governments to impose a military embargo on Israel.

As Israel’s primary patron of economic, military and diplomatic support, the United States has a duty and the capacity to help resolve the Palestinian-Israel conflict. It should either comply with its domestic laws and cease military aid to Israel or simply step aside and allow international mechanisms to function without obstruction.

Ending aid will either restrain Israel and facilitate a political resolution or encourage a backlash that induces the global community to intervene.
Between 1949 and 2008, the U.S.

An introduction to a spe­cial sec­tion in Vol 4 No 1 of [email protected] whose au­thors argue for a fem­inist politics of solid­arity that is truly eman­cip­atory in its aspirations.

We are not asking you for heroic ac­tion or to form freedom bri­gades.