IPSC | 14 novembre 2012 | On Friday 9th November, the AGM of the Dublin Colleges Branch of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) passed a number of motions recognising….
IPSC | 14 novembre 2012 |
On Friday 9th November, the AGM of the Dublin Colleges Branch of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) passed a number of motions recognising Israel as an Apartheid state and in full support of the international campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
Three motions in support of Palestinian human rights and BDS were tabled at the 2012 AGM, and all were passed unanimously. These motions add to the many trade union and Trades Council motions supporting BDS that have been passed in Ireland over the past number of years by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), IMPACT, SIPTU, NIPSA, UCU, TEEU and others.
The first motion states that:
“TUI Dublin Colleges AGM supports the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the state of Israel and thus calls specifically for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions,”
noting also that
“that the call for BDS has come from over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations, including student organisations, as well as organisations within Israel and across the globe and that the campaign is founded on the basis of anti-racism and human rights for all.”
The motion goes on to promise several concrete steps will be taken, namely that the TUI DCB will:
(1) Institute thorough research into both TUI and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) contacts with investments and companies, including subcontractors, that may be implicated in violating Palestinian human rights as stated by the BDS movement;
(2) Pressurise the DIT to divest from Israel and from companies directly or indirectly supporting the Israeli occupation and apartheid policies;
(3) Promote TUI resolutions at congress condemning Israeli violations of international law and human rights and endorsing BDS in any form;
(4) Actively support and work with Palestine solidarity organisations such as the BDS Movement, the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
(5) Request the TUI Executive to affiliate to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and engage in education campaigns to publicize the injustice of Israel’s illegal occupation and its discriminatory policies against the Palestinian people.
The second and third motions called for:
(MOTION 2) The Dublin Colleges branch of the TUI calls for the union pension fund to divest from companies profiting from the Occupation of Palestine.
(MOTION 3) The Dublin Colleges branch of the TUI calls for the TUI Executive to condemn the continued occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel and to support the people of Palestine in their struggle for their basic human rights.
Jim Roche, a teacher in the DIT Dublin School of Architecture, who moved the motions said he was pleased with the outcome, and looked forward to the TUI branch taking action and “bringing similar motions to TUI National Congress next Easter”. In the meantime, he said that activities “raising awareness about the academic boycott will continue in DIT and we will be establishing a Palestine Solidarity group”.
Martin O’Quigley, Chairperson of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), praised the passing of the motions, saying that “it is another important step for BDS and Palestine Solidarity work in Ireland, and in the trade unions and academic sectors especially. It is especially fitting that it came in the same week when Israeli forces killed seven Palestinian children, teenagers and young adults in a horrific attack on the besieged Gaza Strip; young people who may instead – had not the Israeli occupation dominated and tragically ended their young lives – have one day ended up in college in Ireland like so many other foreign students”.
FULL TEXT OF MOTIONS:
Motion 1:
TUI Dublin Colleges AGM supports the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the state of Israel and thus calls specifically for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions.
TUI Dublin Colleges AGM notes that:
1) to boycott is to target products, companies and institutions that profit from or are implicated in, the violation of Palestinian rights
2) to divest is to target corporations complicit in the violation of Palestinian human rights, as enshrined in the Geneva Convention, and ensure that investments or pension funds are not used to finance such companies
3) to call for sanctions is to ask the global community to recognise Israel’s violations of international law and to act accordingly as they do to other member states of the United Nations
4) that in 2009 the The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa released a report stating that Israel was practising a form of apartheid in the occupied West Bank, (http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-378.phtml)
5) that Israel continues to build a 8 metre high “annexation” wall on Palestinian land inside the post-1967 occupied West Bank, contravening the July 2004 ruling by the International Court of Justice (the highest legal body in the world, whose statutes all UN members are party to) and causing the forcible separation of Palestinian communities from one another and the annexation of additional Palestinian land.
6) that within the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues a policy of settlement expansion in direct violation of Article 49, paragraph 6 of the 4th Geneva Convention which declares “an occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.”
7) that the Gaza Strip continues to face a suffocating siege from land, sea and air by Israel, and continues to suffer military incursions into the territory by the Israeli army
8) that Palestinians living in Israel continue to suffer third-class citizenship and are heavily discriminated against from healthcare, education, landownership and in many cases having ‘unrecognised’ villages completely demolished
9) that there continues to be millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the world who are racially discriminated against by not being allowed to return to their homes in Israel and the Occupied Territories, which is legally recognised under international law, including United Nations resolution 194.
10) that unions adopted the call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in the 1980s when it was called for by South Africans fighting racism and apartheid
11) that Ronnie Kasrils, the Jewish South African Minister of Intelligence has said – “The boycotts and sanctions ultimately helped liberate both blacks and whites in South Africa. Palestinians and Israelis will similarly benefit from this non-violent campaign that Palestinians are calling for.”
12) that the call for BDS has come from over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations, including student organisations, as well as organisations within Israel and across the globe and that the campaign is founded on the basis of anti-racism and human rights for all
TUI Dublin Colleges AGM Believes:
1) that unions should work to support the Palestinian people’s human rights and uphold international law
2) that BDS is an effective tactic, which educates society about these issues, economically pressures companies/institutions to change their practices and politically pressures the global community
3) that unions have a moral responsibility to heed the call of oppressed peoples, like occurred during the BDS campaign to end South African apartheid
4) that the BDS movement has united human rights campaigners from different nationalities, races, religions and creeds across the world
TUI Dublin Colleges AGM resolves to:
(1) Institute thorough research into both TUI and DIT contacts with investments and companies, including subcontractors, that may be implicated in violating Palestinian human rights as stated by the BDS movement;
(2) Pressurise the DIT to divest from Israel and from companies directly or indirectly supporting the Israeli occupation and apartheid policies;
(3) Promote TUI resolutions at congress condemning Israeli violations of international law and human rights and endorsing BDS in any form;
(4) Actively support and work with Palestine solidarity organisations such as the BDS Movement, the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
(5) Request the TUI Executive to affiliate to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI – http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108) and engage in education campaigns to publicize the injustice of Israel’s illegal occupation and its discriminatory policies against the Palestinian people
Motion 2:
The Dublin Colleges branch of the TUI calls for the union pension fund to divest from companies profiting from the Occupation of Palestine.
Motion3:
The Dublin Colleges branch of the TUI calls for the TUI Executive to condemn the continued occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel and to support the people of Palestine in their struggle for their basic human rights.