The above video is part of a campaign to pressure the Catalan and Spanish governments to end military and security cooperation with Israel. The website naqba.org explains:
This year, the Palestine solidarity movement in Catalonia, formed by the platform “Amb Palestina al Cor”, “BDS Catalunya”, “Plataforma: Aturem la Guerra”, “Rumb a Gaza” and “Dones en Rebel·lia”, denounce the role that Israel plays in the dessign, research, implementation and global sale of different security and repression systems.
We have proves that Catalonia and Spain are their customers. Specifically, the catalan government has commercial agreements in the security field, most of them, haven’t made them public. Catalonia buys part of the anti-riot equipment from Israel, which are used by mossos d’esquadra, the catalan forces, as the bulletproof vests.
The close relationship from our government and Israel make us complicit of the systematic violation of the Human Rights in the Occupied Territories in Palestine. Therefore, we demand the interruption of any commercial and / or academic relation.
The palestinian population is not alone. We don’t forget them. One more time, we show our solidarity.
Here is the petition they are asking people to sign:
Stop repression against the social movements
Stop Police and military collaboration with IsraelWe the social movements organise to fight against a system that throws us on the dole, that evicts a family every 15 minutes, that persecutes immigrants, that imposes worse working conditions on us, that exploits us. We want a dignified and just life for all, and against us the State organises to repress us, and responds to our desire for change with intimidation and violence.
We condemn the growing repression and violence used against the social movements in Catalonia. We protest that this strategy violates democracy and aims to maintain the current injustices.
We condemn the fact that the repression we are experiencing in Catalonia is strongly interconnected with the global repression suffered by the social movements and specifically, with the Israeli military and security infrastructure. The army itself, and private security and military companies that maintain Palestine under occupation, have used the Palestinian people as a massive training and research ground that has enabled them to create companies, industries , products and services that our governments buy and use to control and repress the social movements. These products are sold with the “guarantee” of having been tested in real situations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
We condemn the fact that the governments of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Spanish State promote economic and business relations with a state that systematically violates international Human Rights legislation. When this collaboration extends to the field of trade in military and security material it is illegal and ethically unacceptable.
For this reason,
We demand to the Catalan Government immediately stop the purchase of anti-riot and security materials from Israeli companies and cancel all agreements signed with RABINTEX Industries and the intermediary companies for the purchase of security and ant-riot material.
We demand to the Catalan Government report on the hundreds of thousands of euros (of our taxes) that it has paid to the Israeli security company “Hancal System Engineering” for assessment in questions of security and control in prisons.
We demand to the Catalan Government immediately withdraw its institutional support for the “Guardian Homeland Security” company, which trains military and police bodies in questions of security in training camps in occupied Palestine and which uses the logo of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force, to publicise its services.
We demand that the Catalan Government and the Spanish State do not authorise companies to import and export military material to Israel (torpedoes, ammunition and diverse armaments), for example Tyco electronics or Indra, with central offices in Barcelona.
We demand to the Catalan Government ensures that the private Israeli companies of the ICTS security mega-group do not undertake tasks of identifying and interrogating travellers in the El Prat airport in Barcelona.
We demand to our universities, the UAB, the UPC and the UPF, and institutions such as ACC10 to cancel their collaboration in research projects with Israel in questions of security and defence.
On the anniversary of the 15th of May 1948, date of the Nakba (the disaster), when Israel forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their houses, lands and villages, we stand up in defence of justice and dignity, salute the Palestinian people in resistance and send them our solidarity: they are neither alone nor forgotten.
You can sign here.
The Catalans know all about insane societies run by the military – Franco died in 1975 . Great video.
“..we stand up in defence of justice and dignity, salute the Palestinian people in resistance ..”
Sounds more like their getting down on their knees.
RE: “We condemn the fact that the repression we are experiencing in Catalonia is strongly interconnected with the global repression suffered by the social movements and specifically, with the Israeli military and security infrastructure.” ~ from the petition (excerpted above)
REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly . . .” ~ Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963
Dickerson/MLK: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly”
“Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. . . .”
from Meditation 17 by John Donne
Everywhere, the people (or many of them) understand repression, colonialization, etc., and everywhere the governments and business interests (almost all of them) are “in bed” with the colonizers, the repressers. Doesn’t it really feel, at long last, as if Marx et al were right to see capitalism and the partnership of capitalists with governments (especially bad wherever, as in USA, governments are bought and sold to the capitalists) as intrinsic evils requiring overthrow.
I never believed in overthrow, and do not do so today, and I’ve never read Marx for that matter, but Spain and Catalonia should be above doing business (and especially “security” business) with Israel. where is BDS when we need it?