Vol. 73/No. 14      April 13, 2009

At a panel discussion titled “Apartheid: From South Africa to Israel,” Nicholas Juliano, an EAJP coordinating committee member, said that “Palestinians face racist separation,” and the system that Israel imposes on Arabs in the region can accurately be described as “apartheid,” after the South African system overthrown almost 20 years ago.

Kali Akuno, of Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the US Human Rights Network, and Peoples’ Hurricane Relief Fund, urged support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign. He said this campaign, which is being called for from within Palestine, is similar to the efforts organized from South Africa as early as the 1940s.

During the question and answer period, Jacob Perasso, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Atlanta City Council president, pointed out that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel has taken an anti-Semitic form in targeting Jewish-owned businesses such as Marks and Spencer in the United Kingdom and Indigo Books in Canada.

Dave Prince, of the Socialist Workers Party, explained that increasingly the term Zionist has come to mean Jew. Prince said that a revolutionary struggle is needed in which Arabs, Jews, Christians, and nonbelievers fight together for a democratic, secular Palestine. It was such a revolutionary course led by Nelson Mandela in South Africa that successfully overthrew apartheid. This is the polar opposite of the course advocated by the current leadership in Palestine—Hamas and Fatah—which is an obstacle to building a revolutionary movement.

Juliano said that the boycott is not of Jewish-owned businesses nor of Israeli goods. He said that it only singles out six corporations, including Motorola and Caterpillar, involved in aiding the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

A participant asked why the struggle against Israeli attacks on Palestine is not generally part of the antiwar movement. Akuno answered that this had to do with being “out organized” by the Israeli lobby in the United States. He also stated that the word Zionist does not mean Jew.

The Israeli Apartheid Week also included a rally on the Emory campus in solidarity with Palestine. About 40 students and others participated. Protesters chanted, “Not one penny, not one dime, Israel out of Palestine.” About the same number of students supporting Israel gathered in a counter rally.

“EAJP was formed less than a year ago to represent students who believe in standing up for human rights and justice against institutionalized racism,” stated Juliano.

In November 2008, EAJP stood up to attacks at Emory, including the writing of racist and violent phrases across the campus such as “Arabs get out of Emory.”

The final event at the campus, which was attended by more than 100 people, featured Norman Finkelstein, an author and independent scholar who opposed the Israeli attack on Gaza earlier this year, which he described as a “massacre.”
 
 
Related articles:
Israeli air strikes in Sudan meant as warning to Iran
Letters
‘Zionism,’ its use today, not in 1948  
 
 
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