thanks for having me at your cathedral i truly appreciate the principles and the courage it takes in the current political situation to host this discussion this dialogue about civil nonviolen resistance to israel's occupation and other forms of oppression i will try to explain the motives behind b d s how the legacy of martin luther king jr and nelson mandela have influenced the movement why is it pertinent in the u s to be active in b d s in order to have your freedom you have to start by freeing your mind and the incarceration of the mind is also what we try to face and challenge in the b d s movement in the boycott divestment and sanctions movement for decades israel with a system of oppression tried to convince us that it's impossible to win it's impossible to resist israel is so powerful it's the fourth strongest army in the world has a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons it's supported by the world's only empire yours and so it's impossible to fight that mass a mass of power so you might as well give up and accept the crumbs that we throw to you but learning from experiences of resistance from mandela from king and from our own roots and i'll talk about that later or palestinian decades of civil nonviolent resistance which is often ignored by the media in this country we learned one thing that you shall not colonize our minds you can take the land you can kill many of us but you will never convince us that there is no hope that one day we will be free we've seen it happen before there's no reason not to believe it will happen again just very quickly about geography history this is the map of pre one nine hundred forty eight mandate british mandate palestine when it was under the british mandate this the second from the left from your established itself upon which was far more than what was given to it in the partition plan and how it established itself is the most important point the partition plan did not say that israel is allowed to ethnically cleanse the majority of the british mandate palestine and well after the war was over so ethnic cleansing is how israel was created in the ruins of palestinian society and and then the last part is you see the settlements the wall the jordan valley being divided so the other part is that with the few patches that are left for palestinians to live on truly bunters towns as in the south african case so palestinians in the occupied territory are thirty seven percent compared to all other palestinians outside occupied territories who are sixty three percent of the palestinian people this is why the palestinian civil society b was first issued in one nine july two thousand and five signed by the great majority of palestinian civil society trade unions women's groups political parties students youth just about everyone signed on the b d s the great majority of the palestinian people it focused on the three basic rights that palestinians are entitled to under international law ending the one nine hundred sixty seven occupation ending the system of racial discrimination which is a form of apartheid and i explained that a bit more later inside israel itself which our laws and policies that israel practices against its own citizens who are not jewish  stand up for palestinian rights the u n has failed to bring our rights so we had to resort to what our south african comrades have done go to the international community and ask people of conscience citizens around the world to stand up for justice in our part of the world so as i said we're focusing on self determination of the palestinian people which at a minimum has to involve the three basic rights without that we cannot exercise our right to self determination so the first part the one nine hundred sixty seven occupied territory there are many aspects of this occupation from graduate ethnic cleansing colonise ation the siege of gaza which was caused by the church folk who happens to be jewish is the aspects of the occupation i can't talk about the entire occupation but some aspects the culture of racism and impunity that's prevailed in israel has reached a very very dangerous level army platoons in israel compete to produce is the most controversial t shirt design and in this particular design which was exposed by the newspaper haaretz a very famous israeli newspaper where this has the crosshairs on  palestinian woman's belly and it says one shot two kids gaza during the attack and of two thousand and eight early two thousand and nine the use of white phosphorus against you and shelters which was largely condemned by international human rights organizations as well as the united nations and of course amnesty international famously produced an excellent report on it called thirsting for justice about israel's denial of palestinian water rights as a means of expulsion of the palestinians from certain parts of the west bank so denial of water you cannot even collect rainwater in the west bank rainwater falling on your land is not yours it belongs to the occupier if you dare to dig a sister in a water well as palestinians have done for centuries the army will go in and destroy it this is illegal fest of water because you're stealing the occupiers water on your land and i'm just focused on all of that and of course the use of palestinian children as human shields which was exposed in the un report on gaza and israel's practices in the west bank in several un reports this issue of using palestinians as human shields especially children was exposed to us really to exist under this system of oppression is to resist because we are reduced to living in ghettos literally surrounded by walls with policies that are very reminiscent of the most racist era in europe the jewish national fund which is a colonial entity that has participated in ethnically cleansing palestinians since the early twentieth century has veto power on  administration which manages ninety three percent of the land of israel making it effectively impossible for non jews to buy lease rent any land on ninety three percent of the land of are citizens of israel cannot buy this land it's off limits so imagine the equivalent in the state of washington you say oh we have a majority of christians jews in this country cannot buy land in the state of refugees and the denial of refugees their right to return simply because they're of the wrong type is the most important aspect of palestinian existence and israeli injustice first because the majority of palestinians are refugees the great majority of palestinians are refugees in gaza about eighty percent of the gaza population are refugees in the west bank it's less it's about forty percent of the west bank palestinians are refugees inside israel itself among the palestinian community in israel about three hundred thousand are internally displaced persons who are not allowed to go home they're israeli citizens they have deeds to their lands inside their country which is now israel and they're not allowed to go home because they're not jewish simply there is no pretense simply you're the wrong type you can't go home now this moves us to why should you care well there are so many reasons beyond basic human solidarity which is a moral obligation but that's a bit noble let's talk about something much more basic than that moral obligation how about doing no harm and ending complicity in a crime that must be fundamental for any human being you don't need to be desmond tutu to recognize that you have an obligation to end complicity in crime the u s in the last number of years ten years spent about four trillion dollars according to a brown university study on its wars in iraq and afghanistan pakistan and so on this whole war industry that started with nine eleven or reached height after nine eleven four trillion dollars were spent and israel was always part of that  a not just that israel lobby especially the neo cons played a key role in prodding the us to go to war in iraq despite the fact that iraq had nothing to do with nine eleven and even after hundreds of thousands of iraqis were killed thousands of american service men and women were killed and billions and billions were spent the us just got almost got out of iraq it's still there but most of the troops got out after a huge human loss and criticize it sorry is to be immediately dubbed anti semitic as if the palestinians were not semitic people are scared in this country to say wrong is wrong  but silence is complicity if you don't speak out if you continue to be scared and intimidated and you're silent then you're complicit because you're not just watching a conflict far away that you have nothing to do with your tax money is what's funding that occupation and apartheid and denial of basic human rights without your tax money israel cannot sustain its system of oppression and its noncompliance with international law so that brings that  very urgent moral political obligation for every single person in this country to do something about it to at least end this complicity and when we talk about peace some people say ok but but this this is fine but we can do a lot without doing boycott because we're working for peace we started getting bored of hearing that term when it's not associated with justice because to the oppressed peace without justice is institutionalizing in justice that's exactly what it is it's telling the slave to accept slavery as fate that's what peace means if it's not associate d with justice it's meaningless to the oppressed so it's only peace without justice as i said is not worth the it's name it's only when it's associated with justice and again as archbishop desmond tutu would say we don't need if then a master becomes nicer the slave becomes more content that's not just peace that's just improved slavery and as to to say we do not want our chains comfortable we want them removed he said that in front of congress at the height of the struggle against apartheid because the u s was suggesting ways to make apartheid more palatable and to us saying no we want to end the system there's no compromise on oppression and oppression completely so the movement is very inspired by mandela and definitely by dr martin luther king  a certain extent a lesser extent by gandhi but it has its roots in decades of palestinian civil peaceful resistance mandela said something very important in the context of talking about the palestinians he was talking about the question of palestine here he said we can easily be enticed to read three conciliation unfairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice and he completely rejected any parity between justice and injustice so in south africa they said absolutely no parity between oppressor and oppressed and oppression and then we can talk there's no dialogue coexistence that before ending oppression and a dialogue and coexistence should be just as a form of resistance as a palestinian young activist the term we should have code resistance not coexistence as long as oppression exists we have to end oppression and then we can live like normal equal human beings before that the only relationship between us and israelis has to be code is distance to oppression that's the only normal relation between an oppressed community and an oppressor community despite all this oppression we insist on the moral right we insist on moral resistance which does not believe in reversing injustice so that we become the oppressors and they become the oppressed that's not removing injustice that's entren us reversing that we want to end in justice so that everyone can enjoy equal rights no one becomes the oppressor this is why the boycott movement focused on many aspects i'll talk quickly about the economic academic and cultur crimes the only on almost i'm two french companies were involved are involved in this truce and light rail among other violations of international law we started the campaign against and until now three years after we started the campaign veolia lost twelve billion dollars worth of contracts another company alston which i mentioned lost just lost a few weeks ago a huge massive contract in saudi arabia worth nine point four billion dollars because of political pressure that we applied on grounds norway which is which has the third largest pension fund in the world was pressured by some groups in this country a dollar in new york as well as a palestinian group stop the wall and an israeli group who profits from the occupation which is a project coalition of women for peace a very wonderful courageous israeli women coalition that has adopted b d s and they produced their website who profits from the occupation which is who profits dot org who profits one word dot org it's a database of international israeli and other companies that are involved in the occupation that are profiting from the occupation so all three groups israeli palestinian and american pressured the norwegian government until israeli company that could never go bad but with a massive campaign basically in france britain arlan nordic countries sweden italy spain and other places they lost so much revenue that helped make the company go bankrupt this wasn't the only factor that led to the bankruptcy but it was certainly one of the most effective factors that could then it can cultural boycott aspect is a very important part of the campaign not symbolically only because there's really academy especially but also culture plays a key role in planning justifying and whitewash and israeli oppression our partners in the u s the u s campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of israel have done an excellent job since two thousand and nine to raise awareness on campuses and to actually get involved in campaigns the beginning of a of a culture and academic boycott book i think it's great academic  cultural institutions and it's not against individuals it's a key point to remember the boycott is not against individual israelis it's against institutions that are complicit and finally b d s crossed that tick and reached the u s of course it reached kind of the first but from the beginning its reach kind of there but we'll ignore that for a moment and there were several wonderful campaigns the u s campaign to end israeli occupation is an umbrella group of many of the groups doing b d s in this company using minerals from the occupied territories of from a settlement and occupied territories so many very creative wonderful campaigns were started for b d s in this country and of course the famous flash mobs including this new york flash mob and grand central station many jewish groups after the attack on gaza and specially after the flotilla have done a lot of work with the b d s movement whether they endorse b d s or not they did a lot of excellent work on boycott divestment and sanctions campaigns colonial state it's an occupier it cannot speak on behalf of all world  and of course hampshire college was the first in the u s to divest in two thousand and nine from six companies implicated in israel's occupation know about churches and i'm reaching the end here an ethical investment as we know the presbyterian church was the first to to start that discussion about the need for divestment ethical investment it's a slow process there are many many hurdles many obstacles the lobby is doing its absolute best to intimidate to bully or to entrap some church leaders into an endless useless dialogue that leads to absolutely nothing other than talk talk talk and do nothing and we're very aware of this trap and we can talk more about it and of course the methodist united methodist church i mention those two in particular because their general assemblies are coming up the united methodist will happen in april or may and then the presbyterian in in  june i think these are extremely important conferences because they will discuss ethical investment motions and if they pass finally this will be a game changer in the us given the weight of the two churches so everyone who is involved even remotely with the methodists or the presbyterians we need your help now to push for accepting this motion for ethically invested investing very important as well  in the cultural field cultural boycott has spread massively since we started the campaign especially after the flotilla attack where performing in israel has become like performing in sun city in south africa in the past it's a sin sin city as it was called so now tel aviv is portrayed as the other sun city that should be boycotted just as well now the very last part the churches until two thousand and nine there was no clear cut christian palestinian voice calling for b d s many christian activists like other palestinians were involved in b d s but there was no official christian voice calling for b d s until two thousand and nine with the publication of the kyra's palestine document major christian figures from all denominations catholic anglican various protestant denominations orthodox the biggest denomination in palestine endorsed b d s as an ethical religious obligation religious obligation this is a theological document the carvers palestine that we hope you can help spread in this country based on christian theology that says christians should resist injustice nonviolent means and do his or her best to end injustice and b d s is part of the arsenal of nonviolent measures that any good christian can adopt in order to end to help end this injustice and this was followed recently by the bethlehem call of two thousand and eleven and this is a cartoon by now the most famous palestinian cartoonist i just used it they did not use it in the document i just used it in this context and it shows jesus kicking the occupation in the butt and it says intifada of the west bank and gaza so the best time call that came out from the kairos group which is extremely important again to rights based principles of the b d s called exactly occupation apartheid refugees the three basic chords is in harmony with a consensus among palestinians so now we have the most influential christian voices in palestine calling for the main principles of b d s and calling for b d s specifically again the key issue is do no harm at the very least if you cannot help us in the struggle at least end your part of complicity in our oppression and as i say everywhere our oppression has made in the usa written all over it it is beyond a nicety or being supportive of o standing in international solidarity it's a basic moral obligation it's know how to wisdom to end complicity in crimes and b d s is a very promising form of nonviolent resistance that israel today calls a strategic threat it works it is working but we need everyone to help us with it and as martin luther king jr said change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle and so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom a man can't ride you unless your back is bent in b d s we're straightening our backs for freedom justice and equality this is what martin luther king would have done thank you