On the Second Anniversary of Israel’s Bloodbath in Gaza: End
International Complicity, Intensify BDS
The Palestinian Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions
National Committee (BNC) is
a wide coalition of the largest
Palestinian mass organizations,
trade unions, networks and
organizations.
Member organizations:
Council of National and Islamic
Forces in Palestine
Gen. Union of Palestinian Workers
Palestinian General
Federation of Trade Unions
Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)
Palestinian Nat’l Institute for NGOs
Federation of Indep. Trade Unions
Global Palestine Right of Return
Coalition
Occupied Palestine and Syrian
Golan Heights Initiative
Gen. Union of Palestinian Women
Union of Palestinian Farmers
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-
Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW)
Nat’l Committee for Grassroots
Resistance
Pal. Campaign for the Academic and
Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
Nat’l Committee to Commemorate
the Nakba
Civic Coalition for the Defense of
Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem
Coalition for Jerusalem
Union of Pal. Charitable
Organizations
Palestinian Economic Monitor
Union of Youth Activity Centers-
Palestine Refugee Camps
Union of Professional Associations
www.bdsmovement.net
info@bdsmovement.net
Occupied Palestine, 27 December 2010 – On the morning of 27 December 2008 Israeli
forces initiated a 23-day military offensive against the occupied and besieged Gaza
Strip killing more than 1400 and injuring over 5000 Palestinians, predominantly
civilians and refugees since 1948. Two years have passed and those responsible for the
atrocities committed have not yet been held accountable. The Palestinian Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on conscientious people
and organizations around the world to step up efforts to end Israel’s long record of
impunity through boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) until international law and
Palestinian rights are upheld.
The UN Goldstone report -- endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, UN General
Assembly, European Parliament, Arab League, among others -- found serious evidence
of war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated mainly by Israel against the
occupied Palestinian population in Gaza. The findings of the Mission confirmed earlier
investigations conducted by independent Palestinian, Israeli and international human
rights organizations. The Goldstone report called for credible and independent
investigation and prosecution of those responsible, and for reparations for the victims.
It called upon the United Nations and its members to activate international judicial
mechanisms, should domestic measures fail to meet the required international
standards. In the two years since Israel's “Operation Cast Lead”, no effective judicial
investigations have been conducted into the conflict, and Israel has refused to cooperate
with the UN Fact Finding Mission. Referring to "structural flaws" in the so-called
Israeli justice system, the Goldstone report concluded that Israel cannot be trusted to
administer justice according to international standards1. In such situations, international
law demands recourse to international judicial mechanisms. States blatantly shielding
Israel from international legal scrutiny, chiefly the US and some European
governments, have thwarted Palestinian recourse to international justice mechanisms,
highlighting the need more than ever for intensifying the global BDS movement’s
efforts to end Israel’s impunity and Western complicity in perpetuating it.
Violations of international law continue to this day, inter alia, through the continuing
Israeli-imposed illegal siege of the Gaza Strip. Israel’s ongoing blockade of essential
foods, construction supplies, as well as access to health and educational services is not
only immoral; it is a severe form of collective punishment, a war crime that is strictly
prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It is inducing mass
poverty, water contamination, environmental collapse, chronic diseases, economic
devastation, and hundreds of deaths. This medieval, patently illegal siege, in its fourth
year, against 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza has been squarely condemned by leading
legal experts, including UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the oPt, Prof.
Richard Falk, who described it as constituting "slow genocide." This is but a
continuation of Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinian people, including their mass
expulsion from their homes during the Nakba in 1948, military rule, occupation and
colonization of their land, apartheid, and persistent denial of the right of Palestinian
refugees to return to their homes and lands and to receive reparations, as stipulated in
UN Resolution 194.
Following the massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010,
Israel announced that it would “ease” the siege of Gaza. However, as a recent report2 by a coalition of leading
humanitarian organizations concluded, “Israel has done just enough to ease the pressure on itself from the
international community, but far too little to ease the restrictions on the daily lives of the 1.5 million Palestinians in
Gaza.”

Cast Lead marked a turning point in public opinion reminiscent of the international reaction to the 1960 Sharpeville
massacre in apartheid South Africa. Support for BDS has been growing at a spectacular rate around the world.
Governments are finding it harder to justify policies that treat Israel as if it were above international law. Israel is
increasingly seen as a pariah state. On the occasion of the second anniversary of Israel’s brutal aggression on Gaza,
the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee calls on:

- People of conscience around the world to intensify BDS efforts to hold Israel accountable and pressure their
governments to immediately suspend arms trade with Israel, implement trade sanctions, and bring to justice all Israeli
officials and military personnel who took the decision and/or implemented Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

- Civil society organizations -- including faith based groups, universities, trade unions, women’s associations,
student groups, academic and professional associations, etc. -- to boycott Israeli goods and complicit institutions and
to divest their own investment and pension funds of all stock in Israeli and international companies that are complicit
in maintaining Israel's occupation, apartheid and violation of international law.

- Governments to respect their obligation to provide access to justice for the Palestinian victims via the United
Nations and in domestic and international courts, and to impose pressure, including sanctions, on Israel to
immediately end its illegal siege of the occupied Gaza Strip and to cease its policies of colonialism and apartheid that
oppress the Palestinian people.

Without paying a price, Israel is very likely to continue on the path of massacres, forcible displacement, and
construction of colonial settlements on occupied Palestinian land. On the second anniversary of the Gaza massacre,
nothing can be more effective than creatively and persistently spreading and deepening BDS campaigns to hold Israel
accountable. This is the shortest and most reliable path to justice, freedom, equal rights and sustainable peace.

1 Goldstone Report, paragraph 1756

2 Dashed Hopes, Crisis Action November 2010