Under the theme "Stop Arming Colonialism", the 15th Annual Israeli Apartheid Week of actions will take place all around the world between March 18th and April 8th, 2019. Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an international series of events that seeks to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people and build support for the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It now takes place in over 200 cities across the world, where events such as film, lectures, direct action, screenings, cultural performances, postering, among more help in grassroots organizing for effective solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. Due to its arms sales and the military support it receives from governments across the world, Israel is able to maintain its illegal occupation and apartheid regime over Palestinians partly. The United States alone is the single largest supplier of arms and military aid to Israel, followed by European states. These directly sustain Israel's oppression and human rights violations. Israel is the supplier of weapons to genocidal regimes in Rwanda, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Presently, Israel is a major arms exporter to right-wing, authoritarian regimes from Brazil to India, the Philippines and beyond. These weapons are promoted as ‘field-tested’, which means they have been used to kill or injure Palestinians. In fact, Israel is already promoting the technology it has used to repress the Great March of Return in Gaza calling for the right of refugees to return home and an end to the siege. These arms deals finance Israel’s apartheid regime and its illegal occupation while simultaneously deepening militarization and persecution of people’s movements and oppressed communities in countries where they are bought. The Palestinian-led BDS movement has reiterated the demand for a military embargo on Israel in the light of Israel’s violent repression of the Great March of Return. International human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have also responded to the Israeli massacre in Gaza with this demand. The UK Labour Party, in its conference in September 2018, passed a motion condemning Israel’s killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza and called for a freeze of arms sales to Israel. Ending arms trade, military aid and cooperation with Israel will undercut financial and military support for its regime of apartheid, settler-colonialism and illegal occupation. It will also end the flow of Israeli weapons and security technology and techniques to governments that suppress the resistance of their own citizens, people’s movements and communities against policies that deprive them of fundamental rights, including the right to the natural resources of their country. A military embargo on Israel is a measure for freedom and justice of Palestinians and oppressed peoples in many parts of the world. It can successfully be achieved with massive grassroots efforts, similar to the sustained global mobilization that eventually compelled the United Nations to impose a binding international military embargo against South Africa’s apartheid regime. Israeli Apartheid Week 2019 will be an important platform for building the campaign for a military embargo on Israel. We invite progressive groups to organize events on their campuses and in their cities to popularize and build momentum in this direction.
To UK activists who protested Today in front of JCB company that manufactured the bulldozers used by IOF to demolish the Palestinian homes and property in the occupied West Bank, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Campaigners from across the UK have converged at JCB's Global Longistics Headquarters in Staffordshire to protest the use of the company's bulldozers in the demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israeli military, on Thursday.
Activists arrived at 6:30 in the morning and locked themselves in place using reinforced arm-tubes in order to prevent the company's deliveries in and out of the depot. "Resisting Demolitions in Palestine," a new book published by the activist researchers Shoal Collective said that Israel carried out at least 461 demolitions of Palestinian homes and property during 2018. JCB machinery was used in at least 130 of these instances, including in the demolition of two Palestinian schools.
Tom Anderson, a researcher from Shoal Collective, and one of the activists present said: “Demolitions carried out with JCB machinery resulted in at least 130 Palestinians being made homeless, including 31 children. JCB should take steps to ensure that its equipment cannot be used in Israel’s home demolitions. If the company does nothing, then they are complicit in Israel’s war crimes.” Last year, JCB’s machinery was used in the preparations for the demolition of the entire Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan Al Ahmar. The planned demolitions were condemned by Amnesty International and the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor as a war crime. The demolitions have so far been averted as a result of popular outcry. The protesters pointed out that the use of JCB equipment to destroy schools in Palestine seems to run counter to the company’s support for the NSPCC children's’ charity in the UK. Michelle Noor, who was also present at the protest said: “If JCB were serious about preventing cruelty to children, they would stop their machinery from being used to demolish schools in Palestine.” Michelle continued, “we won’t stop taking direct action against JCB until they stop their bulldozers being used in war crimes”. Last September, Palestine Solidarity activists held a similar blockade of JCB’s Power Systems HQ near Derby. JCB has been targeted in response to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee’s (BNC) call last year. The Palestinian BNC gave the following statement: “Popular struggle and international solidarity have defended Khan al-Ahmar until today from expulsion, and have stopped the bulldozers manufactured by international corporations from inflicting destruction … It is the role of the BDS movement to mobilize global pressure against Israel’s impunity in perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity and against corporate complicity in these crimes.” They called on ordinary people around the world to take the following actions in solidarity with the people of Khan al-Ahmar, and all other Palestinian communities facing demolition by the Israeli state: “Organize protests at the offices of the JCB, Caterpillar, Volvo, Hyundai, Hitachi, and Liu Gong. Ask them to terminate their contracts with Israel’s occupation forces, and to commit to halting the delivery of all further equipment or services that may be used by Israel in activities that violate fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people.” The Palestinian activist, youth from Palestine, Bahaa Shammala sent a message to the UK activists in a tweet.
To #UK activists who protested Today in front of JCB company that manufactured the bulldozers used by #IOF to demolish the Palestinian homes and property in the occupied West Bank, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. #BDS#StopTheDemolitionspic.twitter.com/vASrXvCv9e
