#BDS: Why socialists should support the boycott of #Israel

"On April 19, the same day that Marrickville Council met to reconsider its vote in support of the Palestinian-initiated boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian human rights and against Israel, the Socialist Party of Australia issued a statement opposing the BDS campaign.

The statement, posted on the web site of Stephen Jolly, one of two Socialist Party councillors elected to the Yarra City Council in Melbourne, said “The “Socialist Party has been asked by a number of groups and individuals if our Councillors … would consider supporting the campaign”. No doubt many of these inquiries would have been occasioned by the concerted campaign by the capitalist media against the NSW Greens and the Marrickville Council, both of which had voted to support the BDS campaign in December 2010. The media campaign, led by Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing pro-Zionist Australian newspaper, sought to cast the Marrickville Council as fiscally irresponsible and the NSW Greens as “nutters” and to pressure them into rescinding their support for BDS."

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