Israel: total boycott against total occupation

In an opinion submitted to the Electronic Intifada website on 4 March 2010 entitled “Moment of truth”, Rifat Kassis rightly asks: what does “boycott” mean, how far does it go, and what does it call for?

We, at 1948: Lest We Forget, wish to respond to any call for a selective boycott of Israel, and to defy those voices which warn us Palestinians (and many international activists, for that matter) who criticize Israel for fear of being labelled “anti-Semites” (although we are Semites). We also wish to challenge politicians who call for yet another round of talks (proximity or otherwise) on the Palestine-Israel question as we lost count of how many of these talks we have had in the last 62 years. All to no avail. In fact, with each set of talks, Palestine seems to be shrinking and it people squeezed within dozens of Bantustans.

A boycott cannot be selective anymore. As Mr Kassis wrote: "The occupation is not a random onslaught of power, and it isn't conducted on some remote soil: it is a complete matrix of control, a strategic, consistent, deliberate, historically constructed, externally condoned..." and, lest we forget, perpetrated on Palestinian land.

The point being missed by many calling for a selective boycott is that the decisions being made inside Israel, inside the occupied Palestinian territories and throughout historic Palestine, are made by the Zionist leadership (and its collaborators), whose aim is the total annexation, occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories, not just post-UN resolution 181, not just post-Armistice lines of 1949, not just post-1967 conquests, but throughout historic Palestine. The recent tug-of-war of words between the US administration and Israel over the settlements question proves that this most right wing of Israeli administrations under Binyamin Netanyahu is adamant in its drive to build more settlements throughout annexed East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

The last 62 years of illegal Zionist occupation cannot be swept aside by simply agreeing to a temporary status quo pending final status agreements. These painful 62 years cannot be parcelled into some kind of colonial areas called A, B, C, Gaza or Jerusalem. They cannot be relegated to the dustbin of history by a ceasefire, a checkpoint or an Apartheid Wall. As the occupation is total and illegal, so must the boycott also be total and considered legal. More