A call from Montreal artists to support the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid…
Today, a broad spectrum of Montreal artists are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and supporting the growing international campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state. Last winter, the Israeli state launched a violent military assault on the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, leaving over 1400 Palestinians dead, including over 300 children. Despite the official end of military operations, the blockade continues to this day, with devastating consequences for Gaza’s residents.
Over 60 years from the beginning of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from historic Palestine through Israel’s creation, Montreal artists are united in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice.
Join us and over 40 cities around the world this year in marking the 6th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). IAW is a week of lectures, workshops, film screenings, and cultural events to educate about Israel/Palestine, and also to give momentum to the growing campaign of Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid. Events in Montreal will take place at UQAM, Concordia, McGill, and other locations around the city. Full schedule of events is below!
endorsed by the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC) of Palestine
Since 2005’s historic call from Palestine for a comprehensive, international movement for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid, we have seen many important victories for this movement in both Canada and Québec.
Before Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) even began members of the Ontario Legislature and the Canadian Parliament are falling all over each other to denounce it. I can’t remember another time when elected legislators formally denounced a student activity like this. Perhaps during the 1950’s when McCarthyism was rampant but that was before my time.
Photo: Palestinian waving flag at demonstration against occupation in West Bank.
The Israeli parliamentary Law Committee has recently approved a law proposal the (“Nakba bill”) that, if passed by the Knesset, would impose economic sanctions on the organizers of Nakba commemorations. Every year in May, Palestinians and supporters of their right of return commemorate the Nakba of 1948, which marks the single most traumatic and far-reaching event in the long and ongoing process of forced displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel. Nakba commemorations are important events in Israel, where some 335,000 Palestinians, citizens of Israel, continue to be denied their right to return to their homes, lands and communities, and are forced to live as internally displaced persons within their own country.
Photo Israeli military demolishes Palestinian Labbada house in Nablus, West Bank.
The sixth annual Israeli Apartheid Week is back again in Montreal, and will be featuring events on three campuses in the city from March 4 to 11.
Every year for the last six years, many cities (43 cities participated last year) around the world join together to coordinate this week, which focuses on the growing campaign of boycotts, divestments and sanctions against the state of Israel. And this year, like every year in the past, pro-Israel apologists respond with campaigns which range from outright offensive to bizarre and puzzling.
I signed the call for sanctions against the state of Israel because of Operation Cast Lead, the incursion and blockade of Gaza, which targeted hospitals, water wells and thousands of Palestinian homes, because of the F-14 and F-16 fighter jets and Apache attack helicopters used against a defenseless civilian population, because of the hundreds of children killed in those attacks, because of the on-going series of targeted assassinations which are extra-judicial killings, which are simply murder, because of the Israeli refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, because of the on-going blockade of the Gaza Strip which deprives 1.5 million people of food, fuel and basic medical supplies,
