Join The Apartheid Free Community Campaign
Apartheid-Free Community (AFC) affirms support for freedom and equality for all peoples and commits a community to working to end Israeli settler colonialism, occupation, and apartheid. These are the historical factors leading to the genocide in Gaza, and they are what we must challenge to win justice and democracy for everyone in Palestine.
WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people;
WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and
WE DECLARE ourselves an Apartheid-free community and to that end,
WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.
Your community can adopt this pledge to help build the movement for justice in Palestine. Your community can be a workplace, recreational club, political group, theater group, union, committee, sports team, student associ- ation, school, mosque, synagogue, or church, to list a few examples.
A CALL TO ACTION
Committing to act as a community to dismantle U.S. support for Israeli apartheid and violence against Palestinians.
Follow the link to the Official Community Sign-On to Apartheid-Free Community pledge.
As a longer-term campaign, AFC invites all pledge communities to figure out their next steps, act in solidarity with Palestinians everywhere resisting apartheid and genocide, and work with the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation to build our united power to successfully challenge joint U.S.- Israeli dispossession of Palestinians. Standing together behind the pledge, publicly and in numbers, is an important step in the struggle. The text of this pledge comes from the Apartheid-Free Communities initiative.
Do you know a group that may sign on to AFC? Let us know, and we can help you!
Contact the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation for more information about joining this campaign.
WHAT IS APARTHEID?
Apartheid is how the Israeli government perpetuates inequality and violence against Palestinians. The apartheid oppression of Palestinians is both a civil rights issue and a racial justice issue. The goal of on-going military occupation and settler colonialism over many decades is to eliminate the indigenous Palestinian population to create and maintain a Jewish majority Israeli state.
Apartheid is defined in international law as a crime against humanity that involves “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically op- pressing them.” While the global understanding of apartheid developed based on the official legal policy by that name that existed in South Africa, apartheid can exist any- where. At that time, an international mass movement, involving everyone from Olympic athletes and international per- forming artists, to union workers and millions of everyday people, carried out boycotts, divestment, and demanded sanctions to help defeat that racist regime.
APARTHEID LOOKS LIKE...
MOVEMENT RESTRICTIONS
A complex system of ID cards, check- points, and permits restricts where Palestinians can travel. Palestinians in Gaza have lived under military blockade and must obtain a permit to leave. Permit applications are often denied or delayed, even for those seeking medical care.
HOME DEMOLITIONS
Israel uses policies including the Absentee Property Law and a building permit system to take over Palestinian-owned land, often for Jewish-only settlements or military training zones.
RESTRICTIONS ON VOTING RIGHTS
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot vote in Israeli elections that determine the policies they must then live under.
Learn more about Israeli apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism
https://bdsmovement.net/colonialism-and-apartheid/summary
Learn more about Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds
https://bdsmovement.net/campaigns
Links to the No Thanks App
Learn the details of Israel’s apartheid policies in these three reports from leading human rights organizations: The Israeli B’tselem, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.
https://bit.ly/btselemapartheid