Tutu ignites Israeli Apartheid Week

By Eileen Fleming

Exclusive to The Arab Daily News

Israeli Apartheid Weeks are internationally held events that seek to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid policies towards the Palestinians and to build support for the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Last Sunday, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu jump-started the South African leg of the 10th International Israeli Apartheid Week in his statement:

I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces.

Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government.

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the apartheid regime.

The same issues of inequality and injustice today motivate the divestment movement trying to end Israel’s decades long occupation of Palestinian territory and the unfair and prejudicial treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government ruling over them.

Those who turned a blind eye to injustice actually perpetuate injustice. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

It doesn’t matter where we worship or live. We are members of one family, the human family, God’s family.

The apartheid regime in South Africa existed from 1948 until 1994; but it was not until the late 1980′s that the American government got on-board with the over twenty years of a global call for boycott, divestment and sanctions/BDS that finally brought that apartheid system to its knees.

The Palestinians began calling for the same in 2005 and they will continue until Israel ENDS the Occupation and honors International Law.

Learn WHY it is Apartheid in Israel Palestine HERE

My rooftop view Aida Camp- eileen fleming

Eileen Fleming is an Author, Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org Follow her at TWITTER

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