The South Florida Coalition for Palestine is calling for a boycott of Duty Free Americas over the Miami-based company’s connection to illegal Israeli settlements and the forced expulsion of Palestinians.
The Duty Free Americas chain is owned by the Falic family, who operate more 180 stores at airports and border crossings in the United States and Latin America. According to a 2019 AP investigation the Falics have donated $5.6 million to settler groups over a ten-year period. They’ve also lent financial support to racist, ultra-nationalist Jewish groups in Hebron.
Simon Falic, one of the three brothers who runs Duty Free, told the AP that Jews should be able to live in any part of the Holy Land they want. “We are proud to support organizations that help promote Jewish life all over the Land of Israel,” he said. “The idea that the mere existence of Jewish life in any geographical area is an impediment to peace makes no sense to us.”
The coalition calling for the boycott includes Dream Defenders, Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida, Al-Awda South Florida, Students for Justice in Palestine South Florida, CAIR Florida, and the South Florida Muslim Federation.
“The call for boycott of Duty Free Americas is especially important for us Floridians to answer because the owners of this company are our neighbors — with many of the stores located in this state — and we must hold them responsible and accountable for the millions of dollars they have donated to the ongoing Nakba,” CAIR-Florida’s Central Florida Regional Coordinator Lara Abu Ghannam told Mondoweiss. “The South Florida Coalition for Palestine is answering this call by the Palestinian people by hosting a virtual protest on September 12 to kick off the campaign in Florida — we will not be silent in the face of occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.”
At the boycott launch event the coalition will be joined by the Campaign to Defund Racism, a Palestinian-led movement that targets “charity” organizations connected to the Israeli settlements.
“Over 200 Palestinian organizations, villages, and community activists have called on the international community to cut the funding to the Israeli settler organizations. What we see from the organizers in South Florida, like al Awda, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Dream Defenders is one of many approaches that will need to be deployed to drive a stake in the spokes of the Israeli squatter movement,” said Cody O’Rourke of the Good Shepherd Collective, which is one of the organizations that makes up the Defund Racism campaign. “Targeting donors, engaging in public affairs campaigns, litigating in the courts, and pushing on Attorney Generals and the Treasury Department to enforce charitable regulations already on the books are all tactics that will have to be taken up and used.”
Earlier this year activists protested Duty Free Americas in front of their Hollywood, Florida headquarters. “As we have seen most recently in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, Israeli Jewish settlers are forcibly expelling Palestinians from their homes,” said community organizer Thomas Kennedy at the event. “We are here to protest the funding that comes from the owners of Duty Free Americas and that supports the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
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“When protests erupted in the West Bank after Banat’s murder, the PA staged its own rally in support of Abbas. Such “support” is illusory and delusional. The displays of Palestinian resistance testify to this. Security coordination, described infamously as “sacred” by Abbas, is no longer merely a feared collaboration but part of the colonial structure against which the Palestinian people are rising up.
“The past definitions of Gaza and the occupied West Bank no longer hold true. The people of Palestine have ushered in a rethinking of what was perceived as Palestinian fragmentation based upon the politics governing the different territories. In particular, the similarity between Gaza and the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank must be emphasized. While Gaza has for long epitomized Palestinian resistance, the refugee camps may also inspire similar movements in the occupied West Bank which so far neither the PA nor Israel have had to contend with.
“The PA is thus no longer in control of the Palestinian narrative. The Palestinians are now forcing the PA and Israel into a new reckoning, which so far is being contained through appeasement. Abbas’s decision to cancel the elections, as well as the aftermath of the PA’s violence against Palestinian civilians, have written an alternative script and delivered power to the people. This is where it belongs, contrary to what Abbas expected to be the result of his authoritarian measures.”
VIDEO: Palestine: Concerned by Loss of Life & Injuries in Occupied Palestinian Territory – Security Council – YouTube
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Palestinians are newly Unified, demonstrating against Israeli Colonial Violence and Expulsion from Jerusalem (juancole.com)
“Palestinians are newly Unified, demonstrating against Israeli Colonial Violence and Expulsion from Jerusalem” Informed Comment, Sept. 3/21, by Ramona Wadi.
EXCERPT: (See Security Council video below)
“In terms of state-building and diplomatic negotiations, the occupied West Bank has been perceived in starkly different terms from Gaza. With the international community funneling financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority in the former, the concept of a fragmented Palestine has been duly enhanced. To the undiscerning, the PA represented pragmatism and progress, while Gaza was synonymous with Hamas, and underdevelopment.
“And yet, the Palestinian people have demonstrated otherwise, with new narratives for unity and resistance. Drawing upon a long trajectory of unified resistance against colonial violence, they have been protesting regularly against both Israeli and PA violence, following PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s cancellation of all elections, the impending evictions of Sheikh Jarrah’s residents in occupied Jerusalem, the most recent Israeli bombing of Gaza, and the PA’s extrajudicial killing of Palestinian activist Nizar Banat.
“The PA has kept up its charade for far too long. It exploited the Palestinian people’s resistance throughout Trump’s tenure as US president, when the PA needed to capitalise upon the people’s resilience to quell any discontent. Now, the Palestinian people are setting a new political trend in terms of resistance, while the PA flounders, trying to regain control of a population which does not want to be shackled by Israel and its collaborators in Ramallah.
“Palestinian refugee camps are edging closer to the prevailing narrative of resistance. As Al Jazeera reported recently, the Jenin and Balata refugee camps are becoming off limits for PA security forces. Israel and the PA have come to understand that Abbas’s weakened political standing has contributed to the emergence of resistance fighters affiliated to several Palestinian political factions. Notably, Al Jazeera reported that the PA “is not only facing resistance from gunmen associated with opposition factions, but also from groups affiliated with Fatah, the faction that dominates the PA.” (cont’d)