US branded 'genocide accomplice' by Derry speaker

Spotlighting how local people can support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement for Palestinian Rights and why.

Urging no-one to shake hands with anyone in the US administration, which he described as “a genocide accomplice, a partner in genocide”.

Asking Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin to stop arming Israel by allowing US arms to go through Irish ports and airports to Israel.

Describing any state which continues to support Israel following last week’s International Court of Justice ruling as “complicit in ‘plausible’ genocide.

These were just some of the issues addressed by Omar Barghouti - a human rights defender based in Palestine - in a wide-ranging interview with Derry Now.

A co-founder of the  BDS Movement, Mr Barghouti was in Derry at the weekend to deliver the annual Bloody Sunday Lecture. He also spoke at the Holocaust Memorial Day vigil held in the city’s Peace Garden on Saturday afternoon.

A recipient of the prestigious 2017 Gandhi Peace Award, Mr Barghouti explained how BDS, launched in 2005, was the “largest coalition in Palestinian civil society”.

“BDS calls for the ending of Israel’s occupation; the ending of its system of racial domination, which meets the United Nations’ definition of apartheid; and the right of Palestinian refugees to return, as stipulated in international law.

“BDS says, in order for Palestinians to exercise our inalienable right to self-determination, those are the three minimal conditions we have to compel Israel to respect.

“To achieve that we have got to end international, state, corporate and institutional complicity in Israel’s regime of oppression because this system of injustice does not exist in a vacuum.

“It is only capable of continuing its denial of Palestinian human rights, as stipulated in international law, thanks to the impunity and the complicity it has from states, institutions and corporations. They are all responsible. 

“In a nutshell, BDS is a non-violent, anti-racist movement, which aims to cut the links of complicity so that the Palestinians can achieve our basic rights under international law. It is anti-racist and that includes being opposed to all forms of sexism, misogyny, anti-black racism, anti-Muslim racism, and anti-Jewish racism.”

According to Mr Barghouti BDS is “morally consistent in opposing all forms of racism”.

“BDS targets complicity not identity, which is really important,” he added. “In 2005, we called on Jewish Israelis opposed to colonialism and apartheid to join us in the struggle. We see the potential of working together to end the system of injustice.

“It was important even before the current, ongoing Israeli genocide and before yesterday’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision.

“BDS has always been the most effective form of solidarity with our struggle for liberation. Why? Because complicity is the foundation of this system of oppression. It cannot exist without this complicity. 

“If states just stopped arming Israel, if corporations stopped being involved in Israel’s violations of international law, if institutions enacted academic, cultural and sporting boycotts against Israel, it could not continue its system of oppression.

“BDS is not a dogmatic thing. It is not an ideological thing. It is a very practical thing and it is a very moral thing.”

Mr Barghouti said BDS tried to reach a golden balance between ethical principles and strategic effectiveness. “We are in it to achieve Palestinian rights only.” 

He added that most people in Ireland supported Palestinians.

“We deeply appreciate it and we don’t take it for granted,” he said. “There is a lot of commonality in terms of facing settler colonialism and oppression.

“People get it in Ireland. If there is any place in Europe where people really get it, it is Ireland. They get settler colonialism. After 800 years they know what it is. They get it intrinsically. They understand.”

He was also very conscious of the pressures currently facing people here, in terms of the cost-of living crisis, the housing crisis, unemployment and climate change and how BDS might not be their priority.

“We only have to look around at the disaster in the NHS, how they are destroying it to sell it to the Americans,” he said. “But we are not asking people to drop their trade union work or their social justice, economic justice or climate justice work. We are asking them to connect the pieces.

“Our liberation, our struggle for justice is connected to those struggles for justice, so we are asking your state, whether it is the United Kingdom or the the Republic of Ireland, to stop arming Israel, to stop allowing arms - in the case of Ireland  - to go through Irish ports and airports to reach Israel. 

“We are asking them to stop doing business with Israel as if it is business as usual, as if it is not an apartheid system, as if it is not a system accused of ‘plausible’ genocide by ICJ. Business as usual with Israel has got to stop. 

“So, the average Irish person can, within their sphere of influence, get the entity to which they belong to end its possible complicity with Israel.”

Citing the continuing boycott of McDonald’s, Mr Barghouti said the franchisee in Israel was still giving tens of thousands of free meals to the Israeli soldiers perpetrating ‘plausible’ genocide. 

“When you go to the supermarket, avoid all Israeli products because all of them are from Israeli companies that are deeply complicit in apartheid and occupation - fruit and vegetables and nappies and wipes,” he said. “What’s important in BDS is that to be effective, you have got to be collective.

“The majority of Palestinians represented in the BDS movement, have always called for isolating the White House, isolating the US Administration because it is not complicit in genocide, it is a full, complete partner in genocide.

“It is arming, funding, defending Israel genocide, giving intelligence to Israel to continue the genocide. It is preventing international accountability. The US, UK and the EU are preventing accountability for Israel.

“As Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa once said, ‘The West has put Israel on a pedestal above international law and above everyone else’. The BDS movement wants to take Israel off the pedestal so that it is treated equally like every other pariah state. The ICJ has ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide. That makes Israel the World’s pariah and it should be isolated entirely, at every level,” said Omar Barghouti.

Returning to the recent ICJ ruling, Mr Barghouti characterised it as “historic and momentous”.

“The world court has said Israel is committing ‘plausible’ genocide. It has ordered Israel to stop all acts which may be conflicting with the Genocide Convention - killing and maiming Palestinians; and destroying hospitals and homes and infrastructure.

“So leaders in Europe and the West, who have always been colonial and hypocritical, are now facing the question of their lifetime  - ‘Do you uphold the ICJ decision and make sure your settler, colonial darling Israel is held to account like everyone else? Or, as one international law expert put it very bluntly, ‘Do you condemn international law into oblivion?’”

Referring to the Bloody Sunday Lecture, Mr Barghouti said he was asked how he held onto hope.

“With more than 90,000 Palestinians killed and injured, devastatingly almost half of them children, I don’t know how to deal with it.

“Still I hold on to hope, not as an article of faith but as a necessity to resist oppression. Change is happening internationally.

“It is really dark out there but if you focus, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is there. You just have to look hard.”