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Friends of the Campaign to “Tell BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines!”

Our “Friends of the Campaign” initiative highlights notable friends and allies who have endorsed our letter campaign to “Tell BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines!”. We appreciate the support of Roger Waters, Libby Davies, former and current Vancouver city councillors, IJV members, local artists, lawyer Dimitri Lascaris and professor Sunera Thobani amongst others. (The list of endorsers to date follows the text of the letter.)

Text of Letter
To: BC Premier John Horgan
BC Finance Minister Selina Robinson

I am writing to express my outrage at the refusal of BC government officials to remove Israeli apartheid wines from publicly owned liquor stores. Your recent action in quickly putting a “…halt to the importing and sale of Russian liquor products” clearly demonstrates that your government can take decisive action. However, your unwillingness to do the same for Israeli wines shows a hypocritical double standard that smacks of racism.
Human rights activists in BC have sustained an on-going campaign for 14 years to have Israeli wines removed from liquor store shelves, most of which are linked to the Israeli settlement enterprise. They have detailed that the wines in question are either from the Golan Heights Winery and its joint venture the Galil Winery; or from the Israeli Teperberg Winery, which proudly displays a map on its website showing vineyards in occupied Palestinian territory.
Israeli settlements are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. They are part and parcel of the systematic targeting of the Palestinian people for dispossession, occupation and apartheid for over 73 years. Last year, the New Democratic Party NDP of Canada passed a resolution that committed in part to end “all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine”. The Canadian government also acknowledges the illegality of Israeli settlements in its official policy.
Further, major international and Israeli human right groups, including Amnesty International, have determined that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid. Therefore, I demand that the BC government immediately de-shelve Israeli wines from our publicly owned liquor stores; I do not wish to be made complicit in supporting apartheid.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-bc-government-to-pull-israeli-apartheid-wines

Friends of the Campaign:

Anne Roberts
(former Vancouver City Councillor)
Dimitri Lascaris
(Lawyer, journalist and activist)
Earle Peach
(Director, Solidarity Notes choir)
Gurpreet Singh
(Independent journalist and activist/Cofounder of Radical Desi, an online magazine that covers alternative politics)
Jayce Salloum
(Artist and curator)
Jean Swanson
(Vancouver City Councillor)
John Soos
(PhD, clinical psychology)
Kevin Neish
(Retired vocational instructor, Mavi Marmara survivor)
Khaled Barakat
(Palestinian-Canadian writer and activist)
Khaled Loutfi Mouammar
(Palestinian Christian denied the right to return to his homeland because he is a non-Jew/Served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 1994-2005)
Kimball Cariou
(former editor of People’s Voice)
Libby Davies
Natalie Knight
(Indigenous (Diné and Yurok) organizer and Chairperson of Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle)
Noah Gotfrit
(Musician, WCCARS member at large)
Pat Howard
(Retired Professor, Simon Fraser University)
Rehab Nazzal
(PhD, Artist and Lecturer, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)
Rev. Marianna Harris
Rifat Audeh
(Canadian award-winning filmmaker and human rights activist)
Roger Waters
(Musician)
Sid Shniad
(Founding member, Independent Jewish Voices Canada)
Stephen Aberle
(Member of Independent Jewish Voices – Canada)
Sunera Thobani
(Professor, University of British Columbia)
Tim Louis
(Lawyer and former Vancouver City Councillor)

Information Picket: No to Israeli Apartheid Wines

Saturday, April 16 3-5 pm
BC Liquor Store, 1520 Commercial Dr., Vancouver

Picket & Public Education Action
Join us to hand out leaflets, get signatures on our action network letter, and outreach to promote the “Tell BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines” campaign.
Major international and Israeli human right groups, including Amnesty International, have determined that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid. Yet the BC government insists to carry Israeli wines in publicly owned BC liquor stores, even though most are linked to the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise.
https://actionnetwork.org/…/tell-bc-government-to-pull…

Information Picket: No Israeli Apartheid Wines | Facebook

Vancouver, Victoria hold new actions to highlight #BoycottIsraeliWines

Send your letter now to support the campaign.

The campaign in British Columbia to Tell the BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines is gaining momentum. On March 26, activists were out on the streets in both Victoria and Vancouver to once again highlight the complicity of the BC government in Israeli war crimes. Both cities carried banners and signs calling on consumers to not support Israeli apartheid, and hundreds of flyers were handed out.

Further, over 800 concerned people have signed our action network letter that was started recently: the on-line version has collected 782 signatures so far and a further 47 signatures were collected when folks signed the letter in-person on March 26.

Friends of the Campaign

There is also a new “Friends of the Campaign” initiative, which will highlight notable friends and allies who have endorsed our letter campaign to “Tell BC Govt to Pull Israeli Apartheid Wines!”. Here is our initial list to date:

Anne Roberts
(former Vancouver City Councillor)
Dimitri Lascaris
(Lawyer, journalist and activist)
Earle Peach
(Director, Solidarity Notes choir)
Jayce Salloum
(Artist and curator)
Jean Swanson
(Vancouver City Councillor)
John Soos
(PhD, clinical psychology)
Kevin Neish
(Retired vocational instructor, Mavi Marmara survivor)
Khaled Barakat
(Palestinian-Canadian writer and activist)
Khaled Loutfi Mouammar
(Palestinian Christian denied the right to return to his homeland because he is a non-Jew/Served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 1994-2005)
Kimball Cariou
(former editor of People’s Voice)
Libby Davies
Natalie Knight
(Indigenous (Diné and Yurok) organizer and Chairperson of Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle)
Noah Gotfrit
(Musician, WCCARS member at large)
Rehab Nazzal
(PhD, Artist and Lecturer, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)
Rev. Marianna Harris
Rifat Audeh
(Canadian award-winning filmmaker and human rights activist)
Roger Waters
(Musician)
Sid Shniad
(Founding member, Independent Jewish Voices Canada)
Stephen Aberle
(Member of Independent Jewish Voices – Canada)
Sunera Thobani
(Professor, University of British Columbia)
Tim Louis
(Lawyer and former Vancouver City Councillor)

Masterclass in Hypocrisy from Canadian politicians

Send your letter here: Tell BC Government to pull Israeli Apartheid Wines Now! – Action Network

We have been campaigning for years to have illegal Israeli settlement wines pulled off the shelves of publicly owned liquor stores in British Columbia. Successive governments, including the current NDP one, have either ignored or rebuffed our demands to even investigate this situation. We have been told it’s a matter of “consumer choice” or under “federal jurisdiction”. The previous NDP minister responsible for this portfolio, David Eby, flat out refused to meet with us in 2018.

So imagine our shock when in just 2 days, the BC NDP government joined other provinces in putting a “…halt to the importing and sale of Russian liquor products from our BC Liquor Stores and provincial liquor distribution centres”. So it can be done and done quickly, it seems. It just depends on who you are and what political agenda is being served. And clearly, the “consumer choice” argument was nothing but a big lie.

This is just one small concrete example of the stunning hypocrisy displayed by Canadian and Western officials this week. This double standard has not gone unnoticed; social media has been abuzz with multiple comments, pointing out that what is framed as legitimate resistance in one country is labelled terrorism in another. That what determines the response of Western governments, as Palestinian writer Ali Abunimah put it, is a matter of “who we are, not what we do”. That Israeli occupation, oppression and apartheid that has lasted for over 70 years stands unchecked. And that the mass killing and forced starvation of civilians in Yemen goes unnoticed for 7 years, and is continuing in real time, as politicians here show they are capable of swift action within 2 days when it suits their purposes.

This action by the BC (and other provincial governments) is a slap in the face to not only Palestinian-Canadians, but to anyone who cares about the trajectory of political discourse in Canada. Because the message here is clear. International law and the much-touted “rules based order” are not neutral policies that will help the Palestinians and other oppressed peoples achieve their liberation. Activists need to rethink the approach of appealing to politicians’ moral compass, as clearly they don’t have one; their support of Israeli war crimes and apartheid is a conscious choice and we must acknowledge it as such.

Masterclass in Hypocrisy: Yes to pulling Russian liquor, NO to deshelving Israeli apartheid wines – Mondoweiss

Background Info:
Boycott Israeli Wines: New Article and Video
NDP: Your Credibility is on the Line

Vancouver, Victoria take to the streets for #BoycottIsraeliWines Day of Action

The Day of Action to Boycott Israeli Wines, Don’t Drink with Apartheid on Feb. 5 featured pickets in two major BC cities as well as solidarity selfies from other parts of Canada. This was just the latest round of protests in a campaign that has been ongoing since 2008, and has been “punching above its weight” since its inception.

Since Israeli wines first came on the shelves in BC’s publicly-owned liquor stores, dedicated local activists have carried the Boycott Israeli Wines, Don’t Drink with Apartheid theme forward. A theme that reflects an organic link with the struggle against South African apartheid, as their supporters stood outside some of the exact same stores many years ago calling for a boycott of S. African wines.

The campaign has faced relentless attacks from the Zionist lobby since 2008, with smear attacks and trolling on social media to the tawdry Buycott calls, and even outright intimidation and threats especially in 2016. Through all of this, the campaign has never wavered, and re-emerges with new determination to keep protesting until the BC (and Canadian) government stop profiteering off Israeli war crimes and apartheid.