We are a group of Israeli citizens, active against Israel’s occupation, apartheid and genocide policies. On behalf of over 640 Israel citizens and residents, who have been supporting the Palestinian-led BDS movement, we urge South Africa to stop the supply of coal to Israel, facilitated by the African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) company, as Israel continues to commit genocide through an annihilation campaign of starvation and bombings against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The need for effective sanctions against Israel is at its peak, now that over 77 days have passed since Israel, emboldened by the Trump administration, shut down any flow of goods or humanitarian aid into Gaza. We are seeing babies dying of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza.
With the mass killing resumed, Israel also exacerbated the clean water scarcity in Gaza to horrific levels by bombing water facilities and cutting electricity lines. In this sense, fueling Israel fuels its genocide, as well as its system of apartheid that denies Palestinians access to the same resources and services afforded to the Jewish settlers of historic Palestine.
We applaud South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). However, that court’s provisions have long been violated by Israel, and as UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s detailed report specifies, UN member states should “use all their political leverage – commencing with a full arms embargo and sanctions – so that Israel stops the assault against the Palestinians, accepts a ceasefire and fully withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territory in line with the ICJ Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024” (1), In a recent tweet, Albanse pointed out: “NO SANCTION/NO ARMS EMBARGO against Israel means, among others, AIDING AND ASSISTING Israel in the commission of one of the most preventable genocides of our history” (2)
Finally, as citizens of Israel, we witness daily, to our dismay, how the majority of Israeli society is wholeheartedly supporting, and to a large extent, participating in this genocide, which only strengthens the need for external pressure. This was also the conclusion reached by over 3700 Israeli citizens who have signed a letter (3) calling for sanctions against Israel, in order to impose a ceasefire. But a ceasefire was reached since the signing of that letter, and has since been repeatedly violated by Israel and eventually abandoned altogether by it. This only strengthens our resolve to stand by the Palestinian-led BDS call of 2005 (4) which couples sanctions, as well as boycotts and divestments, with long-lasting demands rooted in human rights and international law to end Israel’s genocide, as well as its decades-long occupation, apartheid, settler colonialism and ethnic cleasing, 77 years to the ongoing Palestinian Nakba. We ask you to stop the coal flow, as well as other trade with Israel, until these demands are met.
With the hope of a better days as well as lasting freedom in Palestine,
Boycott from Within
(1) https://www.un.org/unispal/document/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-report-...
(2) https://x.com/franceskalbs/status/1898786498004345305?s=46
(3) https://israelicitizensforin.live-website.com/signatures/