As BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) activists, we are no longer interested in the sterile opposition to normalisation generated by the Oslo Accords, but rather in formulating the kind of response that could actually defeat multiple forms of Zionist oppression — ie occupation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. The moment the entire international community — civil society and governments — decides to act the same way it did against the apartheid system of white South Africa, Israel would succumb to the voice of reason represented by the 2005 BDS call issued by more than 170 civil society organisations and endorsed by almost all influential political forces from right to left of the political spectrum in historic Palestine and the Diaspora. The urgent question now is how long will the world tolerate blatant constitutional racism, since it is showing a growing disapproval of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its settlement policies there? The latest BDS success triggered by the American Studies Association (ASA) resolution to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions is, in fact, what we have been calling for since 2004 when the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was launched. But I, as a resident of Gaza and an academic, have been unable to fathom how it is that some reputable universities sign agreements with Israeli universities despite the policy of ethnic cleansing and the latest war crimes committed against the people of Gaza by Israel. Israeli academic institutions are known to be complicit in Israel's policy of colonisation and apartheid. Is it not crystal clear, after all these years and thousands of reports by mainstream human rights organisations that millions of Palestinians are denied the full right to education in the occupied Palestinian territories and in refugee camps? Think about it: our education is denied not only because of more than 600 Israeli checkpoints, the medieval siege of Gaza and the apartheid-like discrimination faced by Palestinian students in Israel. In fact, we are discriminated against because we are not born to Jewish mothers. Thousands of Palestinian students and lecturers are in Israeli dungeons often without trial or sentenced by military courts. All credible international human rights and humanitarian organisations have detailed how the Israeli military deliberately targets Palestinian students and schools, including UN schools. Shouldn't academics and researchers be familiar with those reports? We believe it is our right to expect people of conscience, especially academics and students, to join us in our struggle against Israeli apartheid by boycotting this intransigent, racist and militarised Israeli regime and the institutions that keep it thriving. ASA members found it unconscionable that their association remain complicit in Palestinian oppression by pretending its “business as usual” with apartheid. We, Palestinians, are an oppressed people without a state. We increasingly rely on international law and solidarity for our very survival. What we want is the implementation of international law: putting an end to the Israeli military occupation of Arab lands occupied in 1967, fighting against the policy of colonisation and apartheid as practised by Israel against the indigenous population of Palestine of 1948, and the return of Palestinian refugees who were ethnically cleansed in 1948. Now, is that a call for the end of the State of Israel? Was the boycott of apartheid meant to end South Africa as a country, or to end racism in its ugliest form? Israel is a settler colonialist, apartheid state and the methods — or tools of struggle — used against Apartheid South Africa can be used as a model in our struggle against Apartheid Israel. Transforming Israel from an ethno-religious apartheid state into a democracy should be the objective of every single person believing in liberal democracy in general. But some “liberals” keep whining that one of the “scary aims of BDS” is equal rights and warn that the State of Israel might be in peril if BDS has its way. With pressure imposed by the international community through a BDS campaign, akin to the anti-apartheid campaign that brought Apartheid South Africa to an end, we believe that Israel can be pressured to end its multi-tiered system of oppression. The BDS campaign is intended to lead to satisfying the democratic rights of the Palestinian people in its three components — including, of course, the Palestinian citizens of the State of Israel who experience Israel's institutional racism first hand. That is why one of the major demands of the BDS campaign defended by all those who have endorsed the abovementioned BDS call in 2005 is the call for the end of the policy of apartheid practised against the Palestinians of 1948. We strongly believe that the struggles of the Palestinian people, whether in 1948 or in 1967, that is to say the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and even in the Diaspora, are inseparable. That is why we think that our alternative, which is rights-based, to Oslo's facade of “peace” based on normalisation, can provide all Palestinians with a solution that guarantees the right of return and equality for 1948 inhabitants. To echo Mahatma Ghandi, in 2005 they ignored the BDS call, then they laughed at us, now they are fighting us, next we will certainly win! The writer is associate professor of postcolonial and postmodern literature at Gaza's Al-Aqsa University and a policy adviser with Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.
