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BDS@20: REDEFINING INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY  
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Palestinian BDS National Committee
July 11, 2025
Socialist Project
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*
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*
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_ We must escalate pressure and peacefully disrupt all forms of
complicity to contribute to ending Israel’s unspeakable genocide and
to dismantling its regime of settler-colonial apartheid. Only then,
can we enjoy freedom, justice, and equality. _

,

 

On July 9th, we marked a milestone in the liberation struggle of the
Indigenous people of Palestine, as the Palestinian-led nonviolent,
anti-racist
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BDS movement completes 20 years of grassroots organizing and building
intersectional people power. This day will be remembered in history as
the start of a principled, strategic, and creative process that has
isolated Israel’s 77-year-old regime of settler-colonialism,
apartheid, and military occupation at the grassroots and institutional
level. It has redefined the meaning of solidarity with our struggle as
starting with ending the complicity of states, corporations and
institutions with this regime.

Meaningful solidarity, as BDS has tirelessly advocated, must uphold
the fundamental ethical principle of doing no harm and stopping or
offsetting harm done in one’s name.

Yet in the midst of Israel’s livestreamed genocide against 2.3
million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, we are
too grieved and too enraged to celebrate the phenomenal BDS impact
[[link removed]]. But we owe it to every single
Palestinian, especially our people in Gaza, to reaffirm our
unbreakable commitment to march on until Israel’s regime of
oppression is entirely dismantled. This obliges us to recognize and
share with the world the immense people power we have collectively
built over these two decades and the many milestones we have reached
toward isolating genocidal Israel as a rogue state that threatens
humanity at large.

From Grassroots to Grasstops

Building power from the grassroots to the grasstops, the BDS movement
has created an unprecedented level of global solidarity coordination
and pressure to end Israel’s impunity and global complicity in its
crimes. Despite the painful fragmentation of our people, due to the
phases of settler-colonial conquest and the destructive Oslo process,
our movement has been led by the largest Palestinian coalition ever,
with entities representing the absolute majority of Palestinians
inside historic Palestine as well as in exile, and has maintained
consensus on its goals and strategies.

With the moral authority that this consensus provides, the BDS
movement has influenced states’ decisions to impose targeted
sanctions on Israel. It has played an indispensable role in pressuring
some of the world’s largest investment funds to divest from
companies and banks that enable Israel’s atrocity crimes. It has
galvanized the collective power of unions, associations, and other
grassroots formations representing tens of millions of workers,
farmers, students, artists, academics, and justice organizers to
_make_ local governments as well as colonial Western academic and
cultural institutions divest or break ties with apartheid and its
complicit institutions. Moreover, “BDS … has changed Israel’s
global trade landscape [[link removed]],” as
a senior Israeli trade official has recently admitted.

In marking BDS@20, we reflect on the most momentous BDS achievements
partly to decolonize our minds of the powerlessness and hopelessness
that Israel and its hegemonic partners in the West have persistently
tried to sear into our collective consciousness. We also show the
world what Palestinians and the millions of solidarity organizers,
advocates, and activists worldwide have accomplished on the path
toward Palestinian liberation and the dismantling of Israel’s
genocidal regime.

The Palestinian anti-colonial liberation struggle has always been
intertwined with global struggles for liberation. Evoking this
history, and rooted in over a century of Palestinian popular
resistance, the BDS movement has nurtured deep intersectional
connections between our struggle and those for racial, economic,
social, climate and gender justice worldwide. The legendary resistance
and resilience (sumud
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especially in Gaza, but also in Jerusalem, Jenin, Akka, Haifa, and in
refugee camps across historic Palestine and in exile, nourish our hope
and boundless determination. BDS is inspired by the South African
struggle against apartheid and the US Civil Rights movement, among
others. In turn, our movement is inspiring so many global struggles,
particularly those targeting corporate criminals.

Toward Palestinian Liberation

What makes the impact of the BDS movement and its partners worldwide
all that more impressive is the fact that throughout these 20 years it
has faced not only Israel, a nuclear power with vast propaganda,
financial, intelligence and lawfare resources that since 2014 has
fought BDS as a “strategic threat
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to its entire settler-colonial system. It has also faced the dominant
web of Western (mainly US, UK and German) military, diplomatic,
financial, economic, academic, technological, and media enablers of
Israel’s apartheid and genocide. This _absolute_ Western complicity
has provided Israel with total impunity, shielding it from sanctions
and accountability, and emboldening it to wage brutal, patently
criminal wars of aggression against the peoples of Lebanon, Syria,
Yemen and Iran.

Israel’s experimentation with military applications of artificial
intelligence as well as mass surveillance and “control”
technologies, its spyware weapons, its election-rigging techniques,
and its securitization and militarization doctrines that have been
adopted by many states and their “law enforcement” agencies
globally, as we have consistently shown, have powered despots and
enabled repression, oppression, and the ruthless demolition of human
rights.

The BDS movement has consistently argued that, in parallel with
exterminating tens of thousands of Palestinian lives in Gaza and
destroying its 4,000-year-old civilization, Israel has established a
might-makes-right order unseen in decades, burying the foundations of
international law in the process. Today, the overwhelming majority of
international human rights organizations, UN experts, scholars, and
justice movements agree. They also endorse, as UN Special Rapporteur
Francesca Albanese’s recent report affirms
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our strategy of isolating Israel by enforcing accountability in
accordance with international law and ending complicity. Following the
historic ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which
found Israel guilty of apartheid against Palestinians and its military
occupation of Palestinian territory illegal, former senior UN human
rights official Craig Mokhiber said
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this ruling makes BDS “not only a moral imperative and
constitutional and human right, but also an international legal
obligation.”

Highlights

On the 20th anniversary of the BDS movement, we have much to share,
but we’ll highlight only 20 of the most inspiring impacts the
movement has achieved, or contributed to, in coalition with and active
participation of our cherished global partners and allies:

* Safeguarding the Palestinian consensus
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especially the right of millions of Palestinian refugees forcibly
displaced from their homeland to return and receive reparations, and
on the essential role that strategic international solidarity plays in
our liberation struggle.
* Initiating and mainstreaming the analysis of Israel as a regime
that combines settler-colonialism
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apartheid [[link removed]]
and military occupation against the entire Indigenous people of
Palestine; advancing the interpretation of international law as it
applies to the struggles for justice and liberation; and being the
first significant movement to analyze Israel’s attack on Gaza in
October 2023 as genocide
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international law.
* Redefining meaningful solidarity with the Palestinian liberation
struggle as starting with doing no harm, ending complicity with
Israel’s colonial regime as a matter of ethical and legal obligation
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not charity, and winning broad legal recognition of the right to
advocate [[link removed]] Palestinian rights
through BDS campaigning – despite the well-oiled and persistent
lawfare attempts by Israel and its partners-in-crime in the West to
shut down our movement.
* Building a vibrant global, Palestinian-led anti-apartheid network
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some 120 countries that effectively coordinates advocacy at the policy
level as well as at the corporate and institutional levels. BDS has
become one of the 21st century’s rallying points for social justice
movements, trade unions, academic associations, legal organizations,
churches, cultural institutions and grassroots groups worldwide.
* Leading anti-normalization
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struggles in the Arab region and effectively fighting the relentless
tactics of bribery, intimidation, bullying and repression used by
apartheid Israel, with ample support from its partners in the colonial
West and Arab dictatorships, to impose itself as “normal” and
“welcome” in the region. BDS Jordan, for instance, has led a
successful pressure campaign on the government to halt
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the controversial “electricity for water” deal with Israel.
Another example is the success of the BDS movement in problematizing
and sharply cutting the attendance of Expo Dubai, which faced broad
Arab
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and international
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pressure and condemnation over the UAE dictatorship’s military
alliance with Israel, its war crimes against the people of Yemen, and
its human rights abuses, particularly against migrant workers.
* Building high-level support for policy change, including launching
the 2020 Global South Response [[link removed]],
endorsed by former heads of state, leading MPs, leaders of trade
unions and mass movements, among others, adopting the analysis of
Israel as an apartheid state and calling for lawful sanctions against
it.
* Playing a role in the 2024 UN General Assembly’s adoption of
sanctions
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on Israel for the first time in 42 years; in the African Commission
for Human and People Rights’ adoption
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of its first resolution on Palestine in 24 years calling on African
states to end their complicity in Israel’s apartheid and work to
stop genocide; as well as in the decisions by dozens of mostly Global
South states to adopt targeted sanctions (including states cutting
diplomatic, trade, military
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or other ties to Israel; and others banning Israel bound ships
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or denying port to ships carrying military cargo to it
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* Mainstreaming the military embargo of Israel, with 52 states
officially endorsing the military embargo
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Block the Boat [[link removed]]
campaign gaining impressive traction in preventing the transfer of
weapons to Israel, thanks to the diligent and courageous efforts of
transport/dockworkers unions and grassroots movements in France,
Morocco, Spain, Italy, California, Greece, Turkey, South Africa, among
others; initiating direct action against Israel’s military companies
in several countries, including a blockade
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of an Elbit Systems factory in Brazil in 2014, a peaceful
“occupation” of another Elbit factory in the UK also in 2014
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disruptions of arms fairs
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and more.
* Mobilizing successful pressure on some of the world’s largest
sovereign funds to divest from companies and banks implicated in
Israel’s crimes, starting with Norway’s sovereign fund’s
divestment from Elbit Systems in 2009
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to its divestment from Israel Bonds
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and several complicit companies more recently, passing through similar
divestment decisions by investment funds in the Netherlands,
Luxembourg, and New Zealand.
* Increasingly exposing Israel as a #ShutDownNation
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away; making complicit companies pay a dear price in reputation and/or
their bottom line; and winning the priceless recognition that “BDS
and boycotts have changed Israel’s global trade landscape,” as
admitted [[link removed]]
by the Chairman of the Israel Export Institute.
* Multinationals withdrawing from their illegal business with
Israel, including Veolia, Orange, G4S, PUMA, General Mills, CRH, AXA,
etc.; tech giants being forced to cancel massive investments in
Israel, including Intel cancelling its planned $25B project
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large corporations including McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Microsoft,
Carrefour
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among others starting to feel the BDS heat and financial losses.
Massive Co-op supermarket chains in the UK
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and Italy
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have adopted BDS measures.
* Trade unions: Mobilizing the support of major international and
national trade union bodies for BDS and for pressuring government to
impose lawful sanctions such as: IndustriALL
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LO [[link removed]] (Norway), TUC
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(UK), COSATU
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and NUMSA
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(South Africa), CUT
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(Brazil), CUT (Colombia), farmers union All India Kisan Sabha
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and workers unions from India
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and Nepal
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against “exporting” workers to Israel to replace Palestinians. In
the US, United Electrical (UE) became
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union to endorse BDS in 2015. Ten years later, UE leads a coalition of
7 major national unions and hundreds of union locals, representing
millions of workers, calling for
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an end to military funding to Israel. The NEA, a member of this
coalition and the largest union in the US with 3 million members, has
recently committed to cutting ties with the ADL
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an anti-Palestinian, racist Israel lobby group.
* Many tens of thousands of cultural figures including writers
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musicians
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filmmakers
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visual artists
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and a rapidly growing number of arts organizations
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cultural boycott of Israel, announcing their refusal to work with
apartheid Israel or with events and institutions complicit with
it–amplifying our rights and our global grassroots movement in the
mainstream. Under pressure from artists and human rights defenders,
many major
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music
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literary and arts
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festivals around the world are dropping corporate sponsors
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crimes against Palestinians and/or ended partnerships with Israel
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complicit institutions. Complicit Israeli
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Institutions that have censored artists standing in solidarity with
Palestinians have faced widespread boycotts
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* Universities worldwide, particularly in Europe, North America,
Latin America and Africa, have cut academic and/or financial ties with
Israel
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and its complicit institutions; Israel has drastically lost much of
its dominance in Horizon
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the world’s largest research program; scholarly associations,
including the American Anthropological Association
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Middle East Studies Association
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the Latin American Council of Social Sciences
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(CLACSO) and the American Studies Association
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have all endorsed the boycott of complicit Israeli institutions. The
International Sociological Association (ISA) has recently suspended
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the complicit Israeli Sociological Society.
* Sports: The 47-member Asian Football Confederation has supported
the Palestinian call to exclude
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Israel from FIFA, and teams including Argentina
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and Barcelona [[link removed]] have
withdrawn from friendly matches with and training in Israel. Teams,
athletes
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sports bodies and local authorities have refused to play against
Israel, excluded Israel from tournaments, or withdrawn support from
tournaments over Israel’s participation, including the Jordan U19
National Basketball Team
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the South African Rugby Union
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and the Iranian Women’s Hockey Team, and in surfing
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* Campus organizing: Students at university campuses around the
world, supported by staff, faculty, and higher education unions, have
applied the BDS principle of strategic radicalism
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to popularize academic boycotts and divestment like never before.
Reviving the tradition of student-led activism via campus
mobilizations from the 1980s against apartheid South Africa and the
1960s against the genocidal war on Vietnam, among others, they have
scored divestment wins [[link removed]] at
universities including Trinity College Dublin
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King’s College
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San Francisco State University
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California State University Sacramento
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and so many others. The human rights-focused ethical investment
policies adopted at these institutions embody the deeply
intersectional nature of the BDS movement, laying the foundation for
divestment from weapons companies and entities engaged in gross
violations of human rights in Palestine and beyond.
* Faith communities: The World Council of Churches (WCC),
representing over 580 million Christians, denounced Israel’s
apartheid regime and called for
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sanctions. In North America, US Presbyterians divested
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from companies complicit in Israeli occupation (2014); United
Methodists divested
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from Israeli banks and G4S (2016); Episcopal Church
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Unitarian Universalists
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Alliance of Baptists
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have also voted to divest, and the United Church of Canada has
recently pledged [[link removed]] to
adopt BDS strategies. Over 500 organizations have signed the pledge
[[link removed]] led by the American Friends Service
Committee to be Apartheid Free Communities, including many
congregations, houses of worship, and faith based organizations.
* Over 4,000 queer artists have pledged
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events in Israel until Palestinian rights are guaranteed. The
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association
(ILGA), a federation of 1,900 LGBTQIA+ organizations in 160 countries
and territories, has suspended
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the complicit Israeli organization Aguda. Dozens
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of filmmakers
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have withdrawn
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from TLVFest, the Israeli government LGBTQ film festival, over the
past few years, and more than 300 filmmakers have pledged
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in TLVFest. Hundreds of groups from around the world have organized
the Queer Cinema for Palestine [[link removed]]
global film event, and pride organizers are refusing Israeli
pinkwashing and complicity in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians
in Portugal
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Japan [[link removed]], the US
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and the UK [[link removed]].
* The BDS-led campaign to pressure the UN and states to regulate
militarized artificial intelligence and cloud technologies as dual-use
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has won crucial support [[link removed]] from leading AI,
human rights and legal experts. UNSR Albanese’s recent report
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on corporate complicity has also underlined the importance of this
dual-use regulation.
* Apartheid-Free Zones
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collective spaces across the world have declared themselves free of
Israeli apartheid. These include cafés, farms, theatres, community
centres, B&Bs and more. Through this campaign, we are making
solidarity with Palestine a non-negotiable aspect of building
collectives.

We hope the above sample of BDS achievements will convince you that we
can and shall prevail. But, to that end, we must escalate pressure and
peacefully disrupt all forms of complicity to contribute to ending
Israel’s unspeakable genocide and to dismantling its regime of
settler-colonial apartheid. Only then, can we enjoy freedom, justice,
equality, and what Desmond Tutu calls “our full menu of rights.”
•

_The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC
[[link removed]]) is the largest coalition in Palestinian
civil society. It leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions movement. Visit their website
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[[link removed]]._

_The Bullet is an online publishing venue for the socialist Left in
Canada and around the world. It solicits, publishes and republishes
articles that advance socialist ideas and analysis of important
events, topics and issues. It publishes articles by socialist thinkers
and activists, movement builders and organizers, workers and trade
unionists, and all those seeking to go beyond capitalism._

* BDS
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* Palestinian rights
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* Israeli apartheid
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* international solidarity
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