Activism and BDS Beat 11 August 2011
A new short video documents the journey of a group of community organizers, artists, food growers and cyclists who traveled from London to Palestine by bicycle in 100 days this spring.
The group, who traveled under the banner P.E.D.A.L., uphold the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions as one of their primary principles. The group’s website explains:
As the crackdown on popular resistance organizers in both Palestine and Israel expands P.E.D.A.L. will take the BDS tactic across Europe and into the Middle East; sharing information and working to build strong networks in solidarity with those fighting the oppression of the Israeli state.Our journey will trace a trail of corporations complicit in the illegal occupation; highlighting their profiteering in the resource theft by the Israeli state of the Palestinian people.
We will do solidarity work around court cases for BDS actions and support protest taken to highlight and prevent the Israeli government’s breaking of fundamental human rights, and the complicity of corporations in the illegal occupation.
Along the journey, P.E.D.A.L. linked the anti-colonial struggle in Palestine with land rights, food autonomy and environmental justice issues in communities they passed through. According to the website:
P.E.D.A.L. will visit communities involved in struggles for access to land and water, and fighting for food autonomy; linking food growing networks across Europe to Palestine, and extending seed-sharing communities.The bike ride will highlight the involvement of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in appropriating Palestinian land. The JNF and its affiliate organizations enjoy charitable status in 50 countries as environmental charities, despite the JNF being legislated to carry out Israeli-government functions.
The JNF’s holds land in trust for “those of Jewish race or descendendency to promote the interests of Jews in the prescribed region”. The JNF has direct control of 13% of the land in pre-1967 Israel, and appoints six out of thirteen member of the governing board of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA) which also controls another 80% of land in Israel.
Scratch beneath the surface of JNF’s shining public image to see the forestation, parks and recreational facilities on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages. P.E.D.A.L. works with and promotes the campaigns of groups exposing the JNF’s greenwashing of land occupation- taking information and working to forge new relationships.
Be sure to check out P.E.D.A.L.’s website for the blog archive of the 100-day journey, images, and organizing resources.
Comments
Deceitful JNF
Permalink @Nazkaz77 replied on
Israeli JNF under guise of Environmentalist Charity Organizations is finally EXPOSED by BDS. The JNF & other related US use the Label of Environment Or Peace & Charity Organization have operated in Dozens of Countries
to Deceive, Collect Funds & expand Worldwide. They have used this sort of tactic for years in USA.
nk