Palestinian BDS campaigner at Derry Council

Palestinian human rights campaigner, Omar Barghouti has addressed the Governance and Strategic Planning committee of Derry City and Strabane District Council.

Mr Barghouti is the Founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes boycotts, divestments and economic sanctions against Israel.

The title of his Council presentation was: ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS): Effective Solidarity, Ethical Responsibility and Ending Complicity in Israeli Apartheid in the Time of Genocide'.

Derry to March for Gaza

Mr Barghouti is the Founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes boycotts, divestments and economic sanctions against Israel.

The objective of the BDS campaign is to pressure Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, remove the separation barrier in the West Bank, and full equality for Arab-Palestine citizens of Israel. It also calls for the “respecting, protecting and promoting of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties”.

Addressing councillors and members of the public who attended the meeting, Omar Barghouti said: “The US, supported by the UK and other Western powers, imposed its will, again, on the UN Security Council in its latest vote, preventing a permanent ceasefire and an end to Israel’s deadly siege of 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.

“This has given the apartheid state a green light to continue its rolling massacres of tens of thousands of Palestinians, predominantly children, women and civilian men.

“An expert has told CNN that the intensity of Israel’s bombing had ‘not been seen since Vietnam’. As Israeli military and intelligence officers have admitted to Israeli media, ‘everything is intentional’ in Israel’s ‘factory’ of mass murder in Gaza.

“Nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced, many facing famine and the spread of infectious diseases in overcrowded, unsafe shelters.

“In November, UN experts warned of an Israeli ‘genocide in the making’, having already concluded earlier that Gaza had been ‘running out of time’. Given the scope of Israel’s carnage, the modern day ghetto of Gaza is running out of life.”

According to Mr Barghouti, senior UN official Craig Mokhiber wrote days before leaving his post: “This is a text-book case of genocide.

“The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine.

“What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. … they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities.”

Mr Barghouti added: “In genocide jurisprudence, one needs to prove the intent, which must be pondered against reality and capacity. I shall just cite a few examples of what scholars have considered as irrefutable genocidal intent.

“An Israeli government minister from the Jewish Power party has suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Israel’s war minister, Yoav Gallant, infamously called Palestinians in Gaza ‘human animals’ prompting the US-based Jewish Voice for Peace, the world’s largest Jewish anti-Zionist organisation, to say: ‘As Jews, we know what happens when people are called animals. We can and we must stop this. Never again means never again – for anyone’.

“An unprecedented dehumanisation of the entire Palestinian people prevails today in mainstream Western media outlets, like the BBC, and in Israeli society, enabling its unfolding genocide.

“Calls to flatten Gaza, exterminate its residents, or ethnically cleanse them entirely have become mainstream in Israel, feeding the Israeli military’s actual carpet-bombing of entire neighbourhoods, with a clear intent to destroy life-sustaining conditions.

“The UN is warning that many Palestinians, especially children, may ‘dehydrate to death’ as clean water runs out, while Oxfam and Palestinian human rights organisations have condemned Israel’s use of ‘starvation as a weapon of war’”.

He added: “Every civilian life matters, but where you start the timeline in any situation of oppression is a strong indicator of your moral compass.

“After 16 years of a near-total Israeli siege, designed ‘to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,’ as its architect once admitted, Gaza was turned into an ‘unlivable’ zone’, according to the UN.”

According to Mr Barghouti, the BDS movement, launched in 2005, has “won global support from trade unions, farmers’ coalitions, as well as racial, social, gender and climate justice movements, together representing tens of millions worldwide”.

He said: “If you hate oppression, end complicity. If you love freedom, justice, dignity, and equality for all, irrespective of identity, as we do, mobilise pressure to help us dismantle Israel’s 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid, as well as all forms of oppression.”

Thanking Omar Barghouti, Cllr Shaun Harkin (People Before Profit) said Council had attempted to implement BDS but had been “frustrated because of the legalities here”.

He said: “It has been frustrating for us as councillors who support BDS, especially now in the context of the British Government’s attempt to prohibit our ability to advance BDS through Council. We want to take meaningful action that will put pressure on the Israeli state and put pressure on corporations that are complicit in assisting to carry out genocide right now and who are profiting from apartheid and who are profiting from the occupation.”

Cllr Christopher Jackson (Sinn Féin) said he looked forward to welcoming Omar Barghouti to Derry at the end of January to deliver the annual Bloody Sunday Lecture.

He said: “That was probably one of the most powerful presentations that has ever been presented to this Council, given the televised genocide that is currently underway.

“You have outlined better than any of us could have, the current situation in Gaza, where it has stemmed from, what action we can take as a public authority to take a stand, to ensure international law is protected.

“One thing that has remained firm is our Council’s commitment and solidarity to the Palestinian people and for their right to return. That is something our Council is very, very proud of.”

Cllr Brian Tierney (SDLP)  said the “most powerful” part of Omar Barghouti’s presentation was when he said, ‘If you hate violence, end oppression’.

Tory anti-boycott bill opposed by SDLP

'Legislation designed to silence legitimate dissent and protest against the actions of foreign governments that undermine human rights' - Colum Eastwood

“That sums it up for me,” said Cllr Tierney. “We as a society should be doing all we can to show our support to the people of Gaza and doing all we can to support the BDS movement, which this council has a very strong track record on.

“I am proud to say, at least one of the MPs representing this Council area will tomorrow night [Wednesday] vote against the proposal by the British Government [to outlaw BDS] - Colum Eastwood MP for Foyle.

Cllr Gary Donnelly (Independent) observed people in Derry and Ireland “know what it is like to be under the imperialist jackboot”.

He added: “We know what it is like for a world media to blame the oppressed and fail to deal with the oppressor.

“We have two artificial states in this country. We have a counter-democratic process and it all stems from the same organisation, the same British Imperialism that has destroyed the Palestinian state.

“There are those who will try to imply that what is currently ongoing in Palestine is as a result of what happened on October 7. The people of Ireland and the people of the world know that is false.”

The Council committee subsequently passed the suggested motion supporting Ethical Public Procurement.

The full text of the motion can be read HERE.

The full text of  title of his Mr Barghouti Council presentation: ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS): Effective Solidarity, Ethical Responsibility and Ending Complicity in Israeli Apartheid in the Time of Genocide' can be read HERE.