BDS movement successful despite Israeli pressure: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Bruce Katz, co-founder of Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) in Montreal, to discuss a pro-Palestinian group’s uncovering of UK-Israel collaboration in the massacre of Palestinian people.

A rough transcription of the interview follows.

Press TV: Now, initiatives such as this one where not only is Israel held in the court of public opinion responsible for its atrocities against Palestinians, but also the governments that are backing or allowing Israel to carry out these atrocities; how significant is that?

Katz: First of all I would like to congratulate the pro-Palestine activists in London and in the United Kingdom, on behalf of PAJU and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement here in Quebec, because the work that they are doing is excellent and important, because it informs the public of the double-standards by which Western governments have been operating vis-a-vis Israel and its illegal and brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories.

I might add by the way that it is fine for the British government to claim that these actions are illegal, but it should also be noted that the British government’s action in supporting Israeli state-sponsored terrorism is immoral.

It is well understood that governments such as France, the United Kingdom, of course the United States [and] also Canada are quite active in supplying Israel with military technology. For example, here locally in Quebec, there are several universities that engage in technological exchanges, vis-à-vis military research and technology with for example the Technion Institute in Haifa which developed advanced arms that were used against Gaza in 2014.

So there is a good deal of collusion, not only in the United Kingdom but certainly here in Canada as well and I might also add that the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States are also heavily engaged in sending military equipment to Saudi Arabia which then often finds its way to the hands of ISIS (Daesh) fighters because as you know Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Wahhabi fundamentalism which it exports as it did in Afghanistan, as it has done in Iraq and as it is doing in Syria.

So this is something that has to be denounced. There is a connection between Tel Aviv and Riyadh and there has to be some sort of accountability on the part of the Western governments such as the United Kingdom, France, the United States and Canada.

Press TV: Now getting back to this campaign, how far can these campaigns go in applying the pressure that is needed, considering that this is coming at a time when the UK government has already banned the BDS movement from being adopted in public institutions?

Katz: Let me add this piece of information. Today, Monday, the Trudeau liberal government, which was elected on the idea that it was going to distance itself from conservative polices of Stephen Harper, joined with the conservatives in passing a motion condemning BDS here in Canada and you should notice that this is a coordinated campaign.

It started in France and then in the United Kingdom, the United States and now in Canada. And this is obviously directed by the Netanyahu government directly from Tel Aviv to political elements in these countries, including my own country, who basically serve the Netanyahu government blindly.

In effect, what we have here is a government which makes itself an agent of Israel’s system of institutionalized segregation which we rightly call apartheid.

So this is something that is international but the mass movements that are growing in response to these attempts to suppress the freedom of expression they will fail and as in the case of South Africa, the BDS campaign will be victorious.

The reason that there is such a vigorous reaction on the parts of these governments, attests to the success of the international BDS movement against Israeli apartheid.

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