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Israeli Divestment / Disinvestment Campaign
by Francis
A. Boyle
(The author served as Legal Advisor: to the Palestine Liberation Organization on Creation of the
State of Palestine (1987-1989), to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace
Negotiations (1991-1993) and sometime to the Provisional Government of the State of
Palestine.
The viewpoints expressed here are his own.)During the drafting of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the
Palestinians carefully studied the American Declaration of Independence as well
as the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic. As can be seen from the text of
their Declaration , the Palestinians deliberately patterned their Declaration
upon America’s Declaration. In other words, the Palestinians purposefully sought
to communicate with Americans in terms the Palestinians thought the Americans
could readily comprehend and sympathize with. There are good grounds to believe
that their message has finally gotten through and been well received.
During the course of a public lecture I gave at Illinois State University in
Bloomington-Normal on 30 November 2000 at the request of Professor Jamal Nassar,
Chair of their Political Science Department, I issued a call for the
establishment of a nationwide campaign of divestment/disinvestment against
Israel, which I later put on the internet. In response thereto, the Students for
Justice in Palestine of the University of California at Berkeley launched a
divestment campaign against Israel there. Then the City of Ann Arbor Michigan
considered divesting from Israel. Next, the Palestinian Students at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (whom I am privileged to advise)
launched an Israeli divestment campaign here. As of last count, over 30 campuses
in the United States have organized divestment/disinvestment campaigns against
Israel. This grassroots Movement is taking off! Concerned citizens and governments all over the world must organize a
comprehensive campaign of economic divestment and disinvestment from Israel
along the same lines of what they did to the former criminal apartheid regime in
South Africa. This original worldwide divestment/disinvestment campaign played a
critical role in dismantling the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa.
See my
"Defending Civil Resistance under International Law" 211-81
(Transnational Publishers: 1987). A worldwide divestment / disinvestment campaign
against Israel will play a critical role in dismantling its criminal apartheid
regime against the Palestinian People living in occupied Palestine as well as in
Israel itself.
For much the same reasons, a worldwide divestment / disinvestment campaign
against Israel can produce an historic reconciliation between Israelis and
Palestinians – just as it successfully did between Whites and Blacks in
South Africa.
This new divestment / disinvestment campaign
should provide the Palestinians with enough economic and political
leverage needed to negotiate a just and comprehensive peace settlement
with the Israelis – just as it did for the Blacks in South Africa. Today
the Republic of South Africa stands as a Beacon of Hope for Peoples and
States all over the world. The same could be true for Palestine and
Israel.
Mr. Francis A. Boyle is a Professor in
International Law.
Source:
by the same author:
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