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Mainstreaming BDS in Italy
A series of events in Italy during the month of March show that, despite the government’s strong ties with Israel and recent efforts to shut down the debate on Palestine, the boycott divestment and sanctions movement is becoming more and more mainstream.
In mid-March, a speaking tour by Omar Barghouti, among the co-founders of the BDS movement, brought the aims and goals of the campaign to standing-room only crowds at universities and institutions in Rome, Bologna and Turin.
At an event at Parliament organized by MPs for Peace, Barghouti detailed the movement’s motives and successes and called on Italy, as Israel’s top arms supplier in Europe, to suspend military trade and joint research projects. Barghouti also urged MPs to join efforts to suspend the trade agreement between the European Union and Israel. On the Italian Parliament’s recent ambiguous vote on the recognition of a Palestinian State, which left so much up to interpretation that it was welcomed by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Barghouti explained that it wasn’t the vote itself that mattered, but what comes after. “If, for example, it is followed by a motion for a military embargo, then it becomes more than just a symbolic measure.”
Barghouti also met with leaders of the metalworkers unions of Italy’s three national confederations, FIOM-Cgil, which has endorsed BDS, FIM-Cisl and UIM-Uil, representing altogether over 500 hundred thousand workers. In a joint statement, the unions recognized that the BDS campaign “has proven itself to be the main form of nonviolent struggle for an end to the Israeli occupation and the Israeli government’s continued violation of the Palestinian people’s human rights.”
In an effort to stimulate the discussion on BDS, local organizers sought debate opponents for Barghouti’s public talks, though without much luck. Pro-Zionist figures and opponents of BDS either did not reply to requests or turned down the invitation.
Source: mondoweiss.net