Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: Don`t buy Israeli Apartheid!

Worldwide Activism

Don`t buy Israeli Apartheid! - Consumer Boycott in the UK Steps Up
Worldwide Activism, Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, December 10th, 2005

On Saturday December 10th, branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK) kick-started the winter season of the Boycott campaign. Focusing on oranges, dates and avocados, the central aim of the campaign is to build the boycott of Israeli goods and encourage shoppers to let supermarkets know they will do this.

Consumers in at least 15 cities across the UK will be highlighting their boycott of Israeli goods, and persuading others to do the same, to create solidarity with the Palestinian people. Activists in city centres including London, Brighton, Bristol, Bucks/Berks, Camden, Durham, E.London, Exeter, Hackney, Oxford, Stevenage, W. Kent, W London, W Midlands, and York, will be visiting supermarkets to hand out leaflets. Campaigners in Hackney will take to the streets in a mini-bus, dressed as fruit, to bring their anti-apartheid message to the public in front of supermarkets in the area.

They cite the words of Nelson Mandela who visited Occupied Palestine and declared that Israel's occupation with its Wall, hundreds of checkpoints and rampant discrimination against Palestinians was worse than the Apartheid experienced in South Africa. A widespread, international consumer boycott, sanctions and divestment can do what governments refuse to do, end Israel's impunity.

Organizers have vowed to step up the consumer boycott of Israeli goods to build a mass boycott movement akin to that against apartheid South Africa as a vital tool in the campaign for justice for Palestine. This day of action is part of numerous actions and campaigns launched in recent months. The movement, grounded on the Palestinian call for the Isolation of Apartheid Israel and the apparent urgency to stop international complicity with Zionist crimes, is reaching out successfully to the public and an ever-growing number of social and political forces.