Israel’s attack on the 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip has been described by genocide scholars, international law experts and UN officials as “a textbook case of genocide.” Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed thousands, including over 3,500 children, and destroyed entire neighborhoods, leaving over one million Palestinians displaced. In parallel, Palestinians are being dehumanized and Palestine solidarity is being targeted internationally. It is crucial for all people of conscience to find practical ways to struggle against the root causes of the violence: oppression and injustice.

Launched in 2005, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is backed by Palestinian grassroots movements, unions, and political parties. BDS calls for an end to international state, corporate and institutional complicity in Israel’s regime of oppression so that Palestinians can enjoy their rights.

The BDS movement is inspired by the South African anti-apartheid struggle and the US Civil Rights movement, rooted in a century-old heritage of Palestinian popular resistance to settler colonialism and apartheid. BDS has taken the forms of worker strikes, mass demonstrations, public diplomacy, art, and education.

As we protest ongoing Israeli war crimes, we must also act to end our own government’s complicity in Israeli apartheid. BDS provides the means to exert meaningful material pressure on state and private actors complicit in Israel’s violence.

Read the Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS: https://bdsmovement.net/call

Speakers:

Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights defender and co-founder of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights. He is a co-recipient of the 2017 Gandhi Peace Award. He holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, NY, and is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy (ethics) at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of, BDS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (Haymarket: 2011). His commentaries and views have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, among many others.

Stefanie Fox, MPH (she/her) is the Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a grassroots membership organization that organizes and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of Jews and allies into solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle and a vision of Judaism beyond Zionism. Stefanie joined JVP in 2009 as the organization’s first National Organizer (when the organization had six chapters and a few hundred members) and played multiple roles as part of the team that grew the organization into the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world. Stefanie came up as a grassroots organizer, educator, and public health practitioner inside the global AIDS movement of the early 2000s, and spent about a decade in neighborhood and issue-based community organizing toward racial and economic justice before joining JVP full-time.

Olivia Katbi is an organizer with the BDS Movement and is based in Portland, Oregon. She served as the North America coordinator for the Palestinian-led BDS Movement from 2019 to 2022, where she led and supported BDS campaigning across the US and Canada, helping to win several major BDS campaigns, including campaigns targeting G4S, General Mills, and Ben & Jerry's. She also organizes with the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, where she served as co-chair from 2017-2021.

Moderated by Jason Farbman

About Until Liberation: A Series for Palestine by Haymarket Books:

Today, we are confronting a watershed moment in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid. As an internationalist left around the world, we must take a decisive stance in support of Palestinian liberation.

Haymarket Books and partners are organizing an urgent series of online events to provide education in the context of current events. At Haymarket, Palestine has always been at the core of our political and intellectual project, and we believe free and accessible political education is crucial to solidarity efforts.

The situation is dire. As media outlets spread lies and misinformation, politicians and journalists are paving the way for Israel to carry out mass genocide in Gaza. In the West Bank, settlers are armed and carrying out pogroms. The governments of the USA, UK and across the Global North are putting in place chilling measures to crack down on solidarity. The Israeli state is killing Palestinians with impunity and Palestinians everywhere are being silenced.

We are entering a new era of the struggle for Palestine and until Palestine is free, none of us are free. Join us for a series of urgent conversations about the history, politics, and stakes of Palestinian liberation.

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This event is sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and Haymarket Books and is part of Until Liberation: A Series for Palestine by Haymarket Books, cosponsored by Palestinian American Organizations Network, Mondoweiss, Spectre, Dissenters, Tempest, Palestine Deep Dive, The New Arab, and more. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work. A portion of the proceeds for this event will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).