Yesterday, March 30th, was land day, a day on which we remember the six Palestinian martyrs murdered by the Israeli forces in 1976, while protesting peacefully against the confiscation of land and the Judaization of the Galilee.

Land day is a signpost in the struggle against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that happens every day. Since 1976, over 50 Palestinians protesters were killed on Land Day alone. The confiscation of land and the effort to drive Palestinians out of Palestine and out of their homes and neighborhoods continue very day, and are particularly intense in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, Palestinians suffer brutal oppression, their homes are subject to demolitions and confiscation, their right to live in their city is denied and the apartheid wall strangles their neighborhoods. The wall is another way in which Israel assaults life every day.

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network salutes the courage and steadfastness of the Palestinian people and stands in solidarity with the grassroots Palestinian struggle for land, liberty and selfdetermination. Yesterday was a day of unity, protest, anger, and resistance throughout Palestine. We stand in solidarity with the protesters. We condemn utterly the illegitimate use force by the Israeli army and police against unarmed protesters.

In response to the recent debate regarding the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, we offer a view from a Jewish anti-Zionist perspective. We welcome debate as a part of the growth and success of an international movement deploying BDS against Israeli occupation, apartheid and colonization.

A claim has been made byDr. Norman Finkelstein (known for his condemnation of Israel’s use of the Holocaust to justify and perpetuate Israeli atrocities both historicand current) that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign will not win over public opinion towards support of Palestinian rights because its goals imply destruction of Israel. This claim contradicts his own eloquent evocation of humanitarian and human rights law – which is precisely the basis for the Palestinian call for BDS.

South Africa was not ‘destroyed’ or ‘dismantled’ when apartheid ended; rather, the illegal nature of the state was transformed.  BDS does not call for the ‘destruction of Israel’; it calls for the enforcement of international law.

Meanwhile, a call has been made toZionist American Jews to implement a “Zionist BDS” that isolates and condemns Israeli expansion in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in order to “save Israel.” The Zionist “left” argues that Israel is a “flawed but genuine democracy” with an “ethnically-based non-democracy” beyond the green line (the land occupied in 1967), and that the latter threatens the existence of the former.