Dear Editor:
Re: “Sad to see MP vote against federal decision on Israel,” Inbox, New Westminster Record, March 10.
The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement is a global campaign to non violently increase economic and political pressure on Israel to observe the human rights of the Palestinian people. Since 1947 Israel has systematically denied Palestinians their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonization, racial discrimination, military occupation, bombing and arrests without cause.
The BDS Movement is not about anti Semitism which is a narrative often used to silence the voices of Palestinian human rights activists. The real issue is human rights, solely and unequivocally. Despite abundant condemnation of Israeli policies by the UN, worldwide arts groups, as well as universities, unions and private citizens, the world community at large has failed to hold Israel accountable. There has been a failure to enforce compliance with the basic principles of international law and Israel has continued to commit human rights violations on a daily basis.
The Palestinian people have a right to freedom, equality and self-determination. They have a right to shelter, clean water, a secure food supply, education, security and unencumbered access to work, just as we want to have these rights afforded to us and our children.
By not voting to condemn BDS in Parliament, Peter Julian has both stood up for the Human Rights of the Palestinian people and free political expression in Canada. We must never forget that as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Marianne and Andrew Phillips, New Westminster
