Time to divest from the Israeli occupation

I recently received an email update from Mazin Qumsiyeh:

It is sometimes really hard to even begin to describe our feelings living under brutal Israeli occupation and noting the indifference, complicity, and hypocrisy of so many people in Israel, in America, in Europe and elsewhere. Every day, the Israeli “system” violates dozens of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Examples just in the past week include imposing a curfew on Jayyus village and terrorizing its population (this after confiscating most of its very rich agricultural lands), kidnapping of over 100 Palestinians in a spat of four days (to add to the 11,000 political prisoners held in Israeli torture cells), denial of right of movement, continued siege on Gaza strip, denial of rights of education, more land confiscation, pillaging a big portion of the humanitarian aid and much more.  If I was to write details of these violations, many readers would stop reading very quickly.  Visitors to this area think that Israel is doing these things “to defend itself” and sometimes may go overboard in “security measures.” Security measure that puts millions under a siege.  This maddening description is like saying the Apartheid White South Africa or Nazi Germany in occupied Poland were acting in self defense and sometimes they went a bit too far. Occupiers and colonizers do not have the right of self defense against the resistance of people who they occupy and colonize.

Indeed.  Forty-two years on, just what does Israel expect?  And how is Palestinian resistance (such as it is) to the illegal and brutal occupation supposed to justify yet more illegal and brutal actions? 

For the sake of both Israelis and Palestinians, the occupation must end.  I agree with Naomi Klein that

It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.

On Feb 7, Hampshire College became the first U.S. institution of higher learning to pledge to divest from companies based on their activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. You can write to President Hextor in support of this action here.

UPDATE: Here's a film, 'Closed Zone', by Israeli Yoni Goodman, that brings certain effects of the Gaza blockade to animated life.