On episode 52, we discuss the overt hypocrisy of the current Western-led rush to implement boycotts and sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as many of the same institutions and politicians reject Palestinian calls to sanction Israel. We are joined by Olivia Katbi, the North American coordinator with the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the coalition of Palestinian organizations that leads the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement worldwide.
Lawmakers and organizations are busy, Katbi says, “putting out statements that say they stand with Ukraine; and many of these same individuals and entities, when they are asked to do the same for Palestine, they say that they either can’t make political decisions, they don’t get involved in foreign policy.”
“Or even worse,” Katbi adds, “they are the same politicians and same organizations who have been working to demonize and criminalize boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.”
Katbi tells us that it is critical to understand the difference between the brutal sanctions being imposed on Russia – which are also applied to Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and other states labeled as “enemies” of the West – and the kind of sanctions that the BDS campaign calls for.
By design, she says, the intention of these Western sanctions against Russia and other states “is to strangle the general population … they restrict access to food, medicine, energy, other resources that people need to survive, essentially, with the goal of inciting a revolt.”
The sanctions Palestinians are calling for in the BDS movement, she explains, “are first and foremost about governments just fulfilling their legal obligations to end Israeli apartheid, and not aid or assist in its maintenance.”
When politicians and businesses are implementing these sweeping actions against Russia, “it’s not BDS,” Katbi says.
“We wouldn’t use the BDS acronym to describe the actions they’re taking, because BDS is a very specific call for very specific actions based on complicity, not based on identity or political opinion.”
Katbi points out that businesses, institutions and governments are unintentionally giving Palestine rights activists an opportunity to expand the BDS campaign.
“They are setting a precedent for themselves,” she says. “Now we know that you can take this kind of action, you are doing it right now.”
“It will make it harder for them to [say] ‘our hands are tied.’ That’s the most common response we get when we go up against big institutions with BDS campaigns, “she adds.” And now they’re proven to us that that’s not true. I think it will make it a little easier."
We also speak with writer and activist Omar Zahzah to update us on the current situation around the dechartering of the BDS Working Group by the leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
This past week, the national leadership of the DSA spiked both the working group’s website and Twitter accounts.
They “decided to go ahead and nuke the Palestine solidarity and BDS working group. And the language they use in the DSA is dechartering. And what that means is that the working group is officially disbanded,” Zahzah explains.
DSA’s National Political Committee also banned members of the working group’s steering committee from leadership positions for one year.
The Palestine Solidarity and BDS working group of the DSA, “led the charge to call on the DSA to basically expel [Congressman] Jamaal Bowman for his votes for replenished funding for the Iron Dome,” Zahzah says, as well as Bowman’s acceptance of Israel lobby group junkets to Israel.
"At the end of the day, you have this large national organization, you claim all these socialist values, but you can still be somebody, apparently, who’s really in it for your own career interests, rather than actually advancing socialism. And there’s no way to actually hold that to account within the organization, which is troubling.”
The DSA Palestine solidarity working group has issued a sign-on statement admonishing the leadership for suspending them.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐚𝐝𝐚
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