Israeli Apartheid Week

#March4Palestine

Overview

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is a tool for mobilizing grassroots support on the global level for the Palestinian liberation struggle against Israel’s decades-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid. It is a grassroots solidarity mechanism to raise awareness about Israeli apartheid and to mobilize support for strategic BDS campaigns to end international complicity in this system of oppression as a meaningful contribution to dismantling it. 

BDS

Israeli Apartheid Week

Intro

 

This year, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) comes weeks after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dealt apartheid Israel a historic defeat by finding that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide against the 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. Though the World Court has ordered Israel to stop all genocidal acts, including the killing and harming of Palestinians, Israel continues its genocide, openly defying the Court’s orders.

With effective, intersectional grassroots campaigning, we can build people power to dismantle Israel’s regime of settler colonialism and apartheid. This year, pick your IAW during the period between March 1st and 31st to escalate boycott and divestment campaigns and push harder for lawful sanctions against apartheid Israel, especially a comprehensive military embargo and expulsion from the UNGA and international forums. 

This IAW let’s  not just educate about Israeli apartheid! Let’s take meaningful steps towards supporting the ongoing Palestinian struggle to dismantle it. This March, march for justice, freedom and equality, march for ending genocide and apartheid.

To register your IAW event with the International Coordinating Committee of IAW, fill out this form. Stay tuned for IAW program updates. All Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) activities must conform to the BDS movement's anti-racist principles and respect its affiliation guidelines.

IAW 2024 Global Calendar of Events

A calendar of IAW 2024 events will be available soon!
To submit your event please click here. 
 

AFRICA

ARAB WORLD

ASIA-PACIFIC

EUROPE

LATIN AMERICA

NORTH AMERICA

 

2024 Call Out

 

March for Palestine: Stop Genocide; Dismantle Apartheid. 

March 1st - 31st,  2024

This year, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) comes weeks after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dealt apartheid Israel a historic defeat by finding that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide against the 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. This decision triggers legal responsibilities for all states to end all complicity and to prevent genocide. Though the World Court has ordered Israel to stop all genocidal acts, including the killing and harming of Palestinians, apartheid Israel continues to massacre Palestinian civilians, destroy infrastructure, including the last functioning hospitals, and aggravate the encroaching famine and the spread of infectious diseases among Palestinians in Gaza, openly defying the Court’s orders.

Meanwhile, Israel’s allies in the colonial West are collectively punishing the entire Palestinian refugee community by cutting funding for UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees. This will effectively prevent life-saving aid from reaching Gaza at a time of mass starvation as a result of Israel’s genocidal siege, thus constituting another form of Western complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide. 

As the South African delegation has presented to the ICJ, Israel’s genocide must be seen in the context of its root causes: Israel’s 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid. IAW has, since its inception in 2005, mobilized international education about and action against Israeli apartheid, and is therefore needed this year more than ever to grow global pressure to end the genocide and dismantle apartheid. Neither can continue without the complicity of states, corporations and institutions, particularly in the colonial West.

While Palestinians remain steadfast in the face of this genocide and persist with our liberation struggle, we take hope and strength from global solidarity expressed in mass demonstrations from Jakarta to Washington, Cape Town to London, and Rabat to Baghdad; trade union actions to stop arms shipments to Israel in Belgium, Italy, Greece, Turkey and elsewhere; hundreds of creative civil disobedience actions (sit-ins, peaceful occupations, walk-outs, strikes, etc.) worldwide; fast-growing grassroots BDS campaigns and calls for military embargo; strong declarations of solidarity by racial, Indigenous, climate, gender and social justice movements; high-profile statements by prominent artists, writers, academics, international experts in genocide, as well as by progressive Jewish groups, human rights and civil rights organizations; and a million local, grassroots solidarity actions and creative initiatives worldwide.

Not only Israeli apartheid is on trial at the World Court. All states, corporations and institutions that have aided and abetted its system of oppression that has culminated in the current genocide are also on trial. But international law mechanisms are only effective if we exercise our collective agency to make international law serve our struggle for justice. 

South Africa has recognized the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people through Israel’s colonization since 1948, which has systematically and forcibly dispossessed, displaced, and fragmented the Palestinian people, deliberately denying them their internationally recognized, inalienable right to self-determination, and their internationally recognized right of return as refugees to their towns and villages, in what is now the State of Israel.

- South Africa’s opening statement at the International Court of Justice, January 2024

With effective grassroots campaigning, we can build people power to end this genocide and dismantle its root causes – Israel’s regime of settler colonialism and apartheid. 

Join us by building campaign milestones or mobilizing for new campaigns! This IAW let’s not just educate about Israeli apartheid! Let’s escalate BDS campaigning in all fields and take meaningful steps towards supporting the ongoing Palestinian struggle to dismantle it.

This March, march for justice, freedom and equality, march for ending genocide and apartheid. 

VIDEO OF THE ORIGINS OF IAW

 

 

 

 

Resources

 

Register your IAW 2024 event with the International Coordinating Committee to be uploaded to our global calendar by submitting here.

Visit our  and learn more about the apartheid analysis, its legal aspects, and implications. 

Contact us at  if you have any questions or need support for IAW organizing.

Impact

 

Since its beginnings in 2005, IAW has organized thousands of events in hundreds of cities worldwide. Thanks to IAW, Israel's apartheid policies of institutionalized racism and systematic oppression against the Palestinian people are increasingly difficult to hide and whitewash.
IAW is a collective growing success that fuels the global BDS movement's unstoppable growth in the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.
Now more than ever, let's continue to stand together.

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) Organizing guide

 

Organizing guide, resources and impact 


A. Background
 

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) began in Toronto, Canada in February 2005. Organized by the Arab Students’ Collective at the University of Toronto, it was a great success, with capacity-filled events that attracted media attention around the world. IAW spread to other Canadian cities in 2006, and by 2013 it had grown to more than 200 cities worldwide.

Originally just taking place on university campuses, IAW events are now organized globally by racial, Indigenous, social, economic and gender justice movements, faith communities, trade unions, solidarity networks, among others. IAW is a key part of the international BDS movement for Palestinian rights.

Israeli Apartheid Week has two main goals:

  • Raising awareness about Israel’s ongoing regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people.
    Israel’s regime meets the definition of apartheid under international law, as now recognized by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, and UN experts, not to mention Palestinian human rights organizations, among others. The BDS movement has always recognized apartheid as an integral manifestation and tool of Israeli settler-colonialism, highlighting the role of Zionism at the core of this regime. IAW uses this framework to make historical and concrete connections with other struggles against racism, discrimination, colonialism, and oppression. There are more resources about this framework in Section F.

  • Building support for the Palestinian-led BDS movement.
    19 years since its launch, the BDS movement is now widely recognised by Palestinians, the solidarity mo​vement, and even by Israel and its anti-Palestinian lobby as a key form of pressure to hold Israel to account and end international state, corporate and institutional complicity with its regime of apartheid and settler-colonialism.

 

B. How to Participate

All IAW activities must conform to the BDS movement’s anti-racist principles and respect its affiliation guidelines in order to be listed on the global calendar. To register your events for IAW 2024, please fill out this form!

NOTE: registering through the form does not mean your event/activity will be automatically listed on the website, it will be vetted according to the BDS guidelines above.

  • Listing your events at ​bdsmovement.net/iaw
    One of our important shared resources is the IAW webpage, where events taking place across the world are listed. Once you have registered, your event will be vetted by the IAW International Coordinating Committee (IAW ICC), and then uploaded to the global calendar that is forthcoming on the website. This means people in your local community will be able to find your event easily.

  • Share your events and actions online! #IsraeliApartheidWeek
    Please share your organizing with the wider movement worldwide. Take photos and videos, write short reports, and share them all using the hashtags #IsraeliApartheidWeek, #DismantleApartheid, #GazaGenocide and #UnitedAgainstRacism. We’ll be sharing on social media on the accounts:

 

C. Theme for IAW 2024

March for Palestine: Stop Genocide; Dismantle Apartheid. 


This year, IAW comes at a time when Israel is perpetrating the world’s first live-streamed genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. Apartheid Israel is pushing relentlessly for yet another wave of ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Palestinians, especially in Gaza. The ongoing Nakba [catastrophe] - which started 75 years ago with the brutal expulsion of over half of the Indigenous Palestinian people from their homes – has never stopped and is currently at its height. It is enabled by complicit states, corporations and institutions, particularly in the colonial West.

While Palestinians remain steadfast in the face of this genocide and persist with our liberation struggle, we take hope and strength from global solidarity expressed in mass demonstrations from Jakarta to Washington, Cape Town to London, and Rabat to Baghdad; trade union actions to stop arms shipments to Israel in Belgium, Italy, Greece, Turkey and elsewhere; hundreds of creative civil disobedience actions (sit-ins, peaceful occupations, walk-outs, strikes, etc.) worldwide; fast-growing grassroots BDS campaigns and calls for military embargo; strong declarations of solidarity by justice movements; high-profile statements by prominent artists, writers, academics, international experts in genocide, as well as by progressive Jewish groups, human rights and civil rights organizations; and a million local, grassroots solidarity actions and creative initiatives worldwide.

This mass solidarity mobilization has given South Africa the worldwide popular support to act on its moral authority and take apartheid Israel first to the International Criminal Court and then to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its genocide in Gaza. For the first time, after 75 years, Israel’s entire regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid is on trial at the World Court, and for the crime of crimes. Now, we are witnessing the basic principles, integrity, and credibility of international law facing their most serious challenge in generations. Only through our collective mobilization can we make international law serve our struggle for justice. 

Here you can read the full 2024 IAW Call Out.

 

D. Organizing Ideas and Inspiration

In the midst of Israel’s unfolding genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, let’s not just educate about apartheid, let’s also take meaningful steps toward supporting the ongoing Palestinian struggle to end Israel’s #GazaGenocide and dismantle its regime of settler-colonial apartheid. 

This year’s IAW will be the most important since IAW was launched 19 years ago.

- People with precarious residency status should be encouraged not to participate.

Below are some concrete examples of targets that your group could organize its peaceful disruption (sit-ins, occupations, etc.) against:

  1. Highways, airports, train stations, iconic sites, etc. 

  2. Factories, outlets or branches of companies complicit with Israeli apartheid, especially those arming its genocide or otherwise complicit in its regime of apartheid. 

  3. Parliaments, government buildings, universities, and other complicit institutions.

  4. Ports where ships involved in arming and enabling Israeli apartheid and genocide dock.

  5. Media corporations that amplify anti-Palestinian racism and dehumanizing propaganda.

Some points to consider when planning your peaceful disruptive actions: 

  1. Choose the most complicit targets against which such action may be effective in your context.

  2. Set points of unity and clear, strategic objectives that your action can help achieve. 

  3. Prior to your action, carry out a risk-assessment and make sure activists are well prepared for every likely scenario. Consulting movement lawyers beforehand is always advised!

  4. Create a safe space for people joining your actions. Share the information with trusted people only. 

  5. Make sure your demands and messages are clearly formulated and designed to reach the widest audience possible:  a creative communication strategy that includes both social media and traditional media is a must. 

  6. Stay principled and strategic: know when to stop the action and be clear about the lines  you don’t want to cross as a collective.

  7. Build connections with other justice movements, especially trade unions.
     

  • Let’s build campaign milestones and mobilize for new BDS campaigns. 

The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US Civil Rights movement, and the Indian anti-colonial struggle, among others worldwide. 

We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. 

Below are concrete goals your group can organize for:

  1. Start a new BDS campaign. Please consult the list of the BDS targeted companies profiting from the genocide of the Palestinian people and Israeli apartheid, or select new targets that make sense in your context and meet the BDS movement’s selection criteria for new campaigns. 

  2. Raise awareness around you about Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid and work with your community/center/workplace/trade union/organization to declare themselves an Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ) or an Apartheid Free Community (US) during this month of March. A toolkit and a checklist are available. 

  3. If not done yet, convince your city council/trade union/cultural or academic institution to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and lifting the siege and to cut existing complicit ties with apartheid Israel during this month of March! 

 

E. Basis of Unity

Israeli Apartheid Week is part of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights. As such, the following key BDS reference documents form IAW’s basis of unity:

 

F. IAW Resources

  1. Graphics, Materials & Posters

The blank templates for graphics to be used for your IAW 2024 organizing can be found here (flier/poster and social media graphics).

You can also check out the following:

  1. Articles and Reports


General:

 

  • https://antiapartheidmovement.net/en The new website provides a comprehensive updated resources package with documents, reports and analysis.

  • Al-Haq: Israeli Apartheid: Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism 

  • Birzeit University: Institute of Law & Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem: "Guidelines: Advocating for Palestinian Rights in conformity with International Law” (2014). English, Arabic, Spanish, and German. 

  • Amnesty International: Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity.

  • Human Rights Watch: A Threshold Crossed - Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.

  • B’Tselem: A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.

 

For Beginners: 

  • Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC): Colonialism and Apartheid

  • Ben White: Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, second edition (2014), Pluto Press (you can watch a short presentation video ​here​) 

  • Omar Barghouti: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights ​(2011), Haymarket Books. 

 

More Advanced Reading: 

  • Diakonia: “ICJ Order on Provisional Measures in South Africa V. Israel: Legal Consequences for Third States” (2024).

  • ARDD statement: “Statement on the Responsibility of Third States in Light of the International Court of Justice’s Interim Order” (2024).

  • Opinio Juris: “At World’s End: Palestine, the ICJ, and a New Dawn in International Law (2024).

  • South Africa application instituting proceedings and request for the indication of provisional measures at the ICJ (2023).

  • Al Shabaka, Nadia Hijab & Ingrid Jaradat: “Talking Palestine: What Frame of Analysis? Which Goals and Messages?” (2017). 

  • Al Shabaka, Yara Hawari: “Apartheid from Within? The Palestinian Citizens of Israel” (2017). 

  • ECCP & Mundubat Fact Sheet: “Will Europe address Israeli Colonialism and Apartheid? The Case of Palestinian Jerusalem” (2017).

  • Russell Tribunal on Palestine: A People’s Court, Cape Town Session (2011), summary of findings. 

  • John Dugard, John Reynolds: “Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, in; European Journal of International Law (EJIL), 2013. 

 

RESOURCES

Register your IAW 2024 event with the International Coordinating Committee to be uploaded to our global calendar by submitting here.

Visit our Resources section and learn more about the apartheid analysis, its legal aspects, and implications. 

Contact us at iawinfo@apartheidweek.org if you have any questions or need support for IAW organizing.

 

IMPACT

For more information about the impact of BDS please visit here: https://bdsmovement.net/net

Please also see this article: https://bdsmovement.net/news/18-years-bds-18-years-impact-turning-darkness-into-light

#UnitedAgainstRacism
End #GazaGenocide
#DismantleApartheid
#IAW2024