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What is divestment?
Divestment is the opposite of investment. It is a strategy to put
economic pressure on a corporation or government. In the struggle to stop the apartheid regime in South Africa, international
supporters of the freedom movement struggled to get people, schools, pension funds, religious organizations, and governments
to stop investing in companies that did business in South Africa. Now, international activists are calling for a similar divestment
campaign targetting companies doing business with Israel. Part of that campaign is a boycott of Israeli exports and travel
to Israel.
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Palestinian Civil Society Calls for International
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
"...We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international
civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment
initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your
respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this
Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace..."
Israeli citizens and progressive Jews have called
for a boycott of Israeli exports and travel
"The appeal below was posted in April of 2001. Since then, the situation in the Israeli-occupied
territories has progressively worsened. The Palestinians in the West Bank are being imprisoned within a ghetto wall. The Sharon
government has been able to deflect international criticism of its war crimes and it has even managed to garner support for
its illusory "unilateral separation" plan in Gaza. But as they were talking about "disengagement", the Israeli authorities
escalated the oppression, including moves that appear directed toward ethnic cleansing and de-facto population transfers.
Power
changes in the Palestinian Authority, demanded by Israel, have not helped the Palestinians at all in terms of their daily
life. The road blocks have not been removed. The settlers have become more aggressive and criminal. American and British aggression
in Iraq has diverted public opinion from the situation in Palestine, and daily life under Israeli occupation is more miserable
than it has ever been.
It is now more important than ever for world public opinion to put the pressure of grass-roots
boycott on Israel. The reaction to the proposed British academic (AUT) boycott on two universities in Israel demonstrated
convincingly that Israel is extremely sensitive to such pressures..."
| Read the call from Israeli citizens |
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| Click on picture to go to the Matzpun website |
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| Read the Call from Palestinian Civil Society |
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| Go to the Badil website |
South African leader Desmond Tutu has called for divestment
from Israel
"...Divestment from apartheid South Africa was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots.
Faith-based leaders informed their followers, union members pressured their companies' stockholders and consumers questioned
their store owners. Students played an especially important role by compelling universities to change their portfolios. Eventually,
institutions pulled the financial plug, and the South African government thought twice about its policies.
Similar moral and financial pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at
a time. Students on more than 40 US campuses are demanding a review of university investments in Israeli companies as well
as in firms doing major business in Israel. From Berkeley to Ann Arbor, city councils have debated municipal divestment measures.
These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's
South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the Occupied Territories. To travel only blocks in his
own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital;
less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but
their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger
are all too familiar..."
| Read the statement by Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina |
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| Click picture to go to the MERIP website |
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