Israel worried about impact of BDS rights activities: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Karen DeVito, activist and political commentator from Vancouver, about Israel's plan to deport pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Movement from the occupied territories of Palestine.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What is the purpose behind Tel Aviv’s decision to establish this team tasked with finding and deporting BDS activists?

DeVito: Well, that’s a question for Tel Aviv. I can’t answer that but I can say one thing. I wouldn’t call the movement an anti-Israel movement. I would call it a pro-human rights movement. All the people involved are very concerned about human rights for everybody. It is not that Israel is the only country that has human rights abuses but this is the longest running military occupation since the beginning of the 20th century and this is what people are working on the BDS are focused on. It’s a serious human rights violation on several fronts.

Press TV: Could you just elaborate for our viewers what the BDS means; so to speak in the sense that why has it irked Tel Aviv so much?

DeVito: Well, Tel Aviv has controlled the message. Israel has controlled the message. It controls the message from within Israel pretty much. It counters any accusations with counter-accusations, but now that cell phone cameras are proliferating and people can take videos, people around the world can see what’s happening. They can see the brutality that happens at checkpoints. They can see for example Israeli soldiers beating up Palestinian teenagers, shooting at people, executing young Palestinians, planting a knife next to them, but the overall pressure is to contain and oppress Palestinians in the West Bank by controlling every aspect of their lives; Palestinians in Gaza with the blockade, the weaponized security wall and cooperation from Egypt to make it almost unlivable.

It will be unlivable by 2020; so, some researchers say. And then there’s the oppression of the Palestinian permanent residents in Israel when you have one sort of citizens who have rights and others who do not have the same rights that’s a big problem. So, what the BDS is looking for is for human rights for all Palestinians. Israelis and the Palestinians all should be able to live without fear in the presence of justice and with full human rights. So, far only Israelis have this.

So, what the BDS is looking to do is to have a world movement puts Israel on notice that world is watching and we’re looking for results and we will not stop resisting along with the Palestinians who have called for the BDS until they get goes rights, freedom to travel, freedom to marry whomever they want and live together in their family home, freedom of movement, freedom of person when simply walking in ones’ own neighborhood. All these things in the universal declaration of human rights, you can read each one of them, Palestinians don’t even have one. So, that’s the goal, these human rights for the Palestinians.

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