***image3***Twenty New York activists protested, sang and performed skits near a street fair at Greeley Square in Manhattan last Saturday, calling for a boycott of communications giant Motorola until it stops providing technology to the Occupation army and settlement project.
It was the third action organized by the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI) and the first of a planned series of summer actions around the city to publicize the campaign.
Motorola has been targeted for boycott by the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation and groups throughout the country because of their business with Occupation forces and settlements.
“Motorola technology enables the theft of Palestinian land and the abuse of Palestinian human rights,” said Riham Barghouti of NYCBI. “We are asking New Yorkers to pledge not to purchase Motorola equipment until Motorola and its subsidiaries fully divest from these activities.”
The activists entertained the crowd with “Mama Said (Don’t Build Settlements)” to the tune of the song by the Shirelles, and “Don’t Buy Israeli Goods” to the tune of âHava Nagila.â A skit hosted by “Mr. Moto” and his “daughter” entitled “Tzipi Golda Moto-Israel” compared the history of European colonization of North America, the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and the dispossession of the Palestinian people from their land.
Motorola Israel provides an encrypted cellular network to the Israeli army. It also supplies it with the Wide Area Surveillance System (WASS), radar devices and thermal cameras that are installed around settlements and the Apartheid Wall, which are built on Palestinian land in violation of international law. In April 2009 Motorola stated that it would sell a controversial unit that manufactured bomb fuses by May or June, but there has been no confirmation that the sale has occurred. Previously, Motorola was the target of a successful boycott campaign for its support of Apartheid South Africa.
In 2005 hundreds of Palestinian civil society organizations called on the world to implement Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israeli institutions and businesses.
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Photos from NYCBI. For more, go here.