Responding to a Palestinian initiated global campaign, The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, recently overwhelmingly approved a resolution that will make them an active partner in the campaign of boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel similar to those imposed against South African Apartheid. CUPE represents about 200,000 public sector workers in Ontario and is the largest public sector union in the province.The resolution stated that CUPE supports, "the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194."
CUPE now joins the growing global international campaign, begun on July 9, 2005, by over 170 Palestinian organizations, including the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Another vote, recently taken by NATFHE, the Union of University and College Lecturers in England, supports a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. They cite the purposeful silencing of Palestinian academic freedom through the systematic destruction of Palestinian educational institutions.
Last November, the United States Green Party became the first political party to publicly endorse a statement calling for a comprehensive strategy ofboycott and divestment to pressure the government of Israel to end its abuse of human rights in Palestine. These latest in a series of similar international decisions signal the determination of civil society to put an end to the unjust and oppressive conditions imposed on the Palestinian People by the Israeli government..
