Lately Alice Rothchild appeared on Arabic Hour, Arab-American community television, to talk about boycott. We asked her for a summary of the show, which you can watch here.
I was asked to discuss local Boston area efforts in the realm of BDS so…
I outlined the general arguments for BDS work, how this does not “delegitimize Israel” etc etc and focused on how this is translated on the local grassroots level (a good general intro-from the point of view of a Jew worried about the direction of Israeli policy-to the topic): in particular
1. Boston Hummus campaign (this is a coalition of over 20 groups) re: Tribe (supports the JNF) and Sabra Dipping Hummus (supports the Golani Brigade), this was inspired by work done by American Jews for a Just Peace Philadelphia
2. Jewish Voice for Peace, We divest, TIAA CREF campaign, there are Boston area activists working on a Flash Mob, writing TIAA CREF as shareholders, etc, and I just finished an op ed that has been picked up by JVP and hopefully it will see the light of day
3. Grassroots International, based in Boston, joined the campaign focused on Elbit, their concern is land and water rights
4. Activists are focusing on the upcoming contract with Veolia which is responsible for 60% of greater Boston commuter rail service as well as a segregated bus service for Jewish settlers in the OPT and the Tovlan landfill in the Jordan Valley (dumping garbage from settlements and Israel into the OPT)
5. Several of us met with an aide to Governor Deval Patrick who gave Tribe (in Taunton) tax breaks and is working to strengthen business relationships with Massachusetts and Israel (oy)
So my statement basically is there are a lot of exciting opportunities to do BDS work in your own community and many good reasons to do it as well.
