BDS Quebec endorses “Yes to BDS” campaign at Concordia University
This summer, the world witnessed yet another massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza: men, women and children who are occupied, besieged and, since 2007, subject to a total blockade by the armed forces of Israel, the occupying power. This blockade is illegal, immoral and inhuman.
But the immorality of the collective punishment Israel is inflicting on the Palestinian people goes well beyond the borders of Gaza. Israel is an apartheid state, as defined by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Suppression of the Crime of Apartheid. Israeli apartheid is based on the same three pillars as South African apartheid:
different rights for different groups
discriminatory access to land and population separation in different geographical zones,
total control of the population and military repression.
Palestinian citizens of Israel suffer legalized and institutionalized discrimination at the hands of the Israeli state, simply because they are Palestinian. Like South Africa before 1994, Israel is a “democratic” State for its Jewish population – though certain categories of this population face injustice – but a profoundly anti-democratic one for Palestinians.
Israel is the only state in the world which benefits from total impunity before the international community. The states of this community have woefully failed in their duty to hold Israel responsible for the constant violations of rights of the Palestinian people, leaving Israel free to continue its occupation, its colonization and its dispossession with total impunity.
Where the international community has failed to hold Israel to account, it is up to civil society to lay the grounds for change by supporting and engaging in the world wide campaign to Boycott, Divest and Sanction the State of Israel.
In the coming days, Concordia students will be asked to join this large international movement in favor of human rights, justice and equality for all. On behalf of the Québec BDS Coalition, we want to praise Concordia students for, once again, standing on the right side of history. Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israeli Apartheid!
Steering committee of the Québec BDS Coalition
(which counts over 30 organizations including major labour unions and community organizations across the province).
Rushdia Mehreen
Member of the steering committee of BDS Quebec