By Nagham Khazaal | Campus Reporter
Profound Ethical Duty to End Complicity in Apartheid and Genocide hosting Omar Barghouti and organized by Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies at AUB- Thursday, March 7, 2024, written by Nagham Khazaal, Campus Reporter .
On Thursday, March 7th, I attended a 2-hours virtual meeting titled “Profound Ethical Duty to End Complicity in Apartheid and Genocide hosting Omar Barghouti and organized by Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies at AUB. Omar Barghouti, a founder of the Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the BDS movement, talked about the movement, ending complicity, and advocating for boycott. BDS was founded in 2005 and it stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It’s a nonviolent Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and targeted economic sanctions against Israel. According to Barghouti, BDS has been building people’s power for over 18 years to isolate Israel’s 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid in all fields and to push for targeted lawful sanctions against Israel.
During the virtual meeting, Omar Barghouti highlighted the ongoing struggle of Palestinians against Israeli oppression. He emphasized how Western powers, led by the United States, support, and arm assaults against Palestinians, describing it as the “law of the jungle.” Barghouti described the genocide in Gaza as the world’s first live-streamed genocide, perpetrated by Israel with support from Western cohorts, which have also participated in Israel’s use of food as a weapon to starve Palestinians to death. He argued that this Western complicity raises double standards and evokes centuries of colonialism and dehumanization of Indigenous peoples and racialized communities.
Barghouti outlined the main points of the BDS movement, which includes challenging and peacefully disrupting complicit businesses, and escalating academic and cultural boycotts. Furthermore, it focuses on escalating strategic boycott and investment companies against companies that are complicit in Israel’s war crimes, organizing strategic campaigns and institutions to pressure investments and funds to exclude companies implicated in human rights violations, building coalitions to organize grassroots and civil society campaigns to pressure parliaments and parties and other influential actors to push government to adopt targeted sections especially military embargo, and advocating for meaningful sanctions. Moreover, this movement aims to expel Israel from international forums such as the United Nations General Assembly, the Olympics, FIFA, Eurovision, etc.
Barghouti also shared success stories of the BDS movement, such as cities cutting ties with Israel and universities ending partnerships with complicit institutions. For instance, a year ago, mayors and city councils from Liege and Verviers in Belgium, Oslo in Norway, and Belem in Brazil took decisive measures against Israeli apartheid. The city of Barcelona recently cut its ties with apartheid Israel. Port workers in Belgium, India, Catalonia, Italy, Greece, California, and South Africa have refused to handle Israeli ships and arms shipments, particularly during the current genocide. Mainstream churches in South Africa have endorsed BDS, while mainline churches in the United States have divested from complicit companies and banks. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest and largest African-American churches with three million members, accused Israel of genocide and called for the immediate withdrawal of all US funding and support to Israel. Additionally, thousands of artists and academics have declared support for the cultural and academic boycott of Israel, targeting Israeli institutions, not individuals. Five Norwegian universities have recently severed ties with complicit Israeli universities, and the Belgian Minister of Culture has called for banning Israel from Eurovision. Various other success stories were also mentioned.
Barghouti presented statistics from a 2022 poll indicating that 16% of all Jewish Americans support BDS, with many Jews endorsing the movement and asserting that supporting it is not inherently antisemitic. Despite this support, many people still reject BDS. Israel has invested significant funds, amounting to nine hundred million dollars in a few years, in efforts to suppress BDS, yet they have been unsuccessful in criminalizing it. Despite efforts to hinder BDS activists and repress them, many of them are able to enter the country easily because they have been avoiding the use of their real names on social media. However, Israel prohibits entry to individuals associated with BDS, illustrating the government’s determination to counter the movement.
Despite opposition, Barghouti stressed the importance of solidarity and collective action. He highlighted the complicity of Arab governments and the economic decline in Israel partly due to BDS efforts but mainly due to Israel’s shift to the far-right. Barghouti urged people to boycott complicit companies and emphasized the need for collective action to hold them accountable. He concluded by emphasizing the importance of solidarity in the struggle for Palestinian rights.
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