Great BDS pledge, shame about the fudge
In an impressive display of how to launch a concerted BDS campaign, 150 Irish artists signed a pledge announcing that they intend not to perform or exhibit in Israel, or to accept any funding from institutions linked to the Israeli government, until “such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights”.
Unfortunately, Raymond Deane of the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign which had organised the Pledge, was then quoted as saying “You can’t really pin this down, but it means, at least an end of the occupation of Palestine; dismantling or at least stopping the settlements; and Israel negotiating in good faith with the Palestinians”.
You might expect a general statement of possibilities such as this to have come from a well-meaning artist, but one would have hoped that a PSC official could have stated the aims of BDS as they stand: End the occupation, equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel and respecting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194 of 1948.
It’s time this fudging stopped.
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