Boycott Divestment Sanctions

United Church human rights activists review progress, plan for the future

Unsettling-goods

After its General Council meeting in 2012, the United Church of Canada launched a campaign against the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Two years later a group of UCC activists came together to review progress and plan for the future

At its annual meeting held near Hamilton on September 12-14, a group of 42 United Church activists from across Canada decided to continue and strengthen their push to defend the human rights of Palestinians. I was an outside observer. Here are some of my observations on their very successful and productive meeting.

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Human rights for Palestinians focus of pan-Canadian meeting in Ottawa

Assembly

For the second time in four years, people from across Canada met to discuss strategies for developing support for human rights for Palestinians. Following up on the first BDS conference held in Montreal in 2010, this meeting of nearly 200 activists, educators and concerned citizens took place in Ottawa as one “stream” of the massive People’s Social Forum. There was a feeling that another significant step had been made.

See my report below: (more…)

Has the BDS movement been sidetracked?

I recently received an email from a thoughtful Palestinian/Canadian friend, who raised concerns about what he thinks is a worrying trend concerning the BDS campaign. (See his email is at the end of this post).

He is concerned that the BDS call from Palestinian civil society is being sidetracked – or in his words “hijacked” – by those who focus primarily on “ending the occupation” and minimise (or even ignore)  the other 2 demands articulated in the 2005 call (i.e. “right of return for refugees”, and “civic rights” for Palestinians inside Israel).
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