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Apartheid

Namibian Workers Protest ‘Slave Labor’ At Shop Rite

Shoprite Holdings, the largest supermarket retail chain in Africa, is under fire from workers organizing against grueling work conditions. The current surge in organizing follows the suicide of Shoprite worker Fabiola Zondjembo, a Walvis Bay woman who ended her life by drowning after enduring constant abuse at her job. For workers and organizers confronting brutal conditions at the retail giant, the current struggle is also part of Namibia’s long history of colonialism and neocolonialism. Shoprite, a South African multinational, has more than 3,000 stores across the African continent.

Israel Cannot Rebut Apartheid

On 24 June 2023, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) Herzl Halevi, Chief of Shin Bet (Intelligence) Ronen Bar, and Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai released a joint statement. They pointed to ‘violent attacks… by Israeli citizens against innocent Palestinians’, which they characterised as ‘nationalist terror in every sense’. Such a statement is rare, particularly the description of the violence as ‘nationalist terror’ and the rendering of Palestinian victims as ‘innocent’. Typically, high-ranking officials in the Israeli government portray such attacks as retaliation for terror attacks by Palestinians.

Belgian City Of Verviers Cuts Ties With Israel’s ‘Apartheid Regime’

The Belgian city of Verviers has become the latest city in Europe to cut its ties with the Israeli “apartheid regime” to “strengthen its support for the Palestinian people,” the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. In its meeting, Verviers Municipal Council discussed a motion introduced by members of the Socialist Party (PS), the Labor Party (PTB), and the Ecologist Confederation (ECOLO) that says that the City of Verviers wants to strengthen its support for the Palestinian people by cutting its ties with the Israeli apartheid regime. The draft proposal said that the municipal council of Verviers undertakes not to open relations with the state of Israel and its institutions as long as the apartheid system persists and the violation of international law by the Israeli authorities.

By Refusing To Host Israel, Indonesia Shows Us How To Defeat Apartheid

Palestinians are being killed in record numbers. Racist, hate-filled fanatic Zionists are invading the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Palestinian worshipers are being terrorized by Israeli forces. Yet it is Indonesia that is being penalized internationally merely for engaging in discussions about not allowing an Israeli soccer team to play on its soil. The Israeli under-20 soccer team was supposed to play at a FIFA tournament in Indonesia in the summer. But after internal Indonesian discussions about blocking Israel from playing, FIFA decided to take away the tournament and not allow Indonesia to host it.

A Mass Wave Of Israeli Army Refusal Could Be A Transformative Moment

During the Second Intifada, as the Israeli army was killing thousands of Palestinians in its effort to suppress the uprising, I was part of a movement of Israeli youth and soldiers who refused to serve in the army. From the age of 18 to 20, I spent 21 months under arrest and in prison, alongside many others, in protest of the occupation and its brutal policies. It was one of the largest campaigns of conscientious objection seen in Israel — one that, until recently, seemed very unlikely to occur at such a scale again. Over the past two weeks, however, and for the first time in two decades, a new movement of Israeli army refusers has emerged in opposition to the far-right government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, as it advances a slew of anti-democratic legislation.

Two Peace Advocates Work To End Israel’s Occupation Of Palestine

Lee Camp, the host of “Behind the Headlines,” interviews two prominent – and very different – peace activists working to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Adam Bloomberg and Issa Amro could not have grown up more differently. Amro in the embattled occupied Palestinian city of Hebron and Bloomberg in a prominent Jewish family during the troubled years of South Africa’s apartheid regime. So how did they both find themselves working so vociferously towards the same goal? Host Lee Camp finds out in this thought-provoking and wide-ranging interview with the two activists.

Report: Major Corporations Are Complicit In Israel’s Water Apartheid

In December, the Palestinian human rights organization, Al-Haq, released a report accusing major corporations of maintaining Israel’s water apartheid on Palestinians living in the occupied territories. According to Al-Haq, businesses are instrumental in helping Israel restrict water access to Palestinians and destroy Palestinian water infrastructure. Additionally, foreign companies profit from Israel’s system of water discrimination. Al-Haq’s paper named both Israeli and international companies as: Complicit in the violation of the Palestinian right to self-determination and permanent sovereignty over natural resources, as well as the war crime of pillage and inhumane acts of expropriation of natural resources amounting to the crime of apartheid.” The report detailed the actions of Israeli water companies Mekorot and Hagihon but also included outside firms TAHAL Group International B.V., Hyundai, Caterpillar Inc., JC Bamford Excavators Ltd. (JCB), and Volvo Car Group.

Kick Out Apartheid: Campaigning For Justice In Sport For Palestine

As the World Cup begins, Samidoun is part of a growing global campaign to demand FIFA take action to hold the Israeli occupation accountable for its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, including Palestinian sport. The campaign also aims to support anti-normalization efforts in support and boost sports boycott campaigns as well as #BoycottPuma and related actions in the sports world. It’s time to score a goal for Palestine! Israel has violated the principles of FIFA in a variety of ways that would normally warrant disciplinary actions and even a suspension of its membership. However, the politics of FIFA have prevented the organization in the past from taking such action. Its internal by-laws have even been amended to make it more difficult for the Palestine Football Association (PFA) to demand such action.

The Next Step In Palestine’s Struggle Is The Most Difficult

With time and, in fact, soon after its formation in 1994, Palestinians began realizing that the PA was not a platform for liberation, but a hindrance to it. A new generation of Palestinians is now attempting to articulate, or refashion, a new discourse for liberation that is based on inclusiveness, grassroots, community-based activism that is backed by a growing global solidarity movement.

Will Scathing Amnesty Apartheid Report Lead To Change In Israel’s Criminal Practices?

The reality that this report has brought forward opens doors to a much more aggressive anti-apartheid campaign than we have seen so far. When Zionist organizations hold events, they do so in support of Israel; they encourage others to support Israel financially and politically. These organizations need to reserve conventions centers and hotels, the corporate offices of which should have copies of the Amnesty report on their desks alongside a demand that they refuse to cater to Zionist organizations. According to the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, “[i]nternational criminal responsibility is to apply to individuals, members of organizations and representatives of the State who commit, incite or conspire to commit the crime of apartheid.”

Understanding The Politics Of Urban Apartheid In The United States

Baltimore Maryland is a majority-black but hyper-segregated city. Following the uprising in Baltimore in 2015 in response to the police murder of Freddie Gray, Dr. Lawrence Brown, a public health expert at Morgan University, a historically black university in Baltimore, found that historical context and data were missing from the conversation about what was happening. Thus, he wrote "The Black Butterfly: The Politics of Race and Space in America." In this book, Dr. Brown describes the history of and the players who created the urban apartheid and how Baltimore became a template for many cities across the country. His book, available through Johns Hopkins University, provides the data, language and solutions necessary for the struggle to dismantle systemic racism.

Anti-Occupation Activists Find Their Place In Israeli Protests

The growing presence of Israeli anti-occupation protesters has been one of the most notable aspects of the wave of demonstrations that started on July 14 outside the Prime Minister’s Residence on Balfour Street, Jerusalem. Among other things, this bloc of protesters have demanded justice for Iyad al-Hallaq, a Palestinian with autism whom Israeli police shot dead in the Old City of Jerusalem in late May. The anti-occupation bloc, comprising several hundred protesters, are not on the margins of the demonstrations. Last Saturday night, for example, it was possible to hear them chanting “Justice for Iyad” at the Prime Minister’s residence, even as Israeli riot police were forcefully dispersing the crowd. In contrast to countless instances over the past decade, in which left-wing protesters have tried to insert radical messaging into mainstream demonstrations and been met with rejection or violence, this time, the response was very different.

Massive March Demands Justice And Liberation For Palestine

Thousands of people joined a massive rally and march for Palestine in Brooklyn, New York, as part of the “Day of Rage” against Israeli annexation, colonization and Zionism in Palestine on Wednesday, 1 July. The rally was led by Within our Lifetime • United for Palestine and organized by the NY4Palestine coalition, of which Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a member alongside WOL, Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; American Muslims for Palestine – NJ; and several Students for Justice for Palestine chapters throughout New York City. The rally lasted for nearly two hours as the crowd continued to grow, full of energy and militant spirit to struggle for Palestine. The march was widely attended by young people and by the Palestinian community in New York, and slogans like “Not just annexation – Not just occupation, Palestine won’t take it, Bring the whole thing down!” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “There is only one solution! Intifada revolution!” filled the air.

History Provides Clues Into Israel’s West Bank Annexation

Palestine has been annexed, occupied, stolen, and Palestinians have been dispossessed, exiled, caged, detained, subjected to an apartheid regime, and killed by the state of Israel for over seven decades. Every few years the world wakes up to protest some aspect of Israeli apartheid, occupation, or a massacre, and then it returns safely to its deep slumber. Every so often, Israel manages to awaken the angst of the European Union and other international organizations with some announcement or another, a murderous attack on Palestinians, a declaration of annexation or “sovereignty,” and then, as if under the influence of a spell, the angst disappears just as fast as it arose. What usually follows is a long procession of world leaders coming to visit Israel or inviting the Israeli prime minister to their capital to bestow their love and respect for him and the so-called Jewish State.

UN Experts Denounce Israeli Apartheid And Call For Sanctions

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society, commends tens of UN experts for their courage in speaking truths that States and international organizations representing them, including the UN and EU, have sought to evade and suppress. The UN experts said in a statement issued in Geneva today that the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory currently planned by Israel's right-wing government "would be the crystallisation of an already unjust reality: two peoples living in the same space, ruled by the same state, but with profoundly unequal rights. This is a vision of a 21st century apartheid.” Their statement called for “accountability and an end to impunity [as] an immediate priority for the international community.”
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