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…
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)
Sat., March 26th, 2 pm Broadway-Commercial Station, Vancouver
Join us on Saturday, March 26 for a Palestine stand! We’ll distribute information, materials, stickers and more, as well as sign letters to support the #BoycottIsraeliWines campaign. Take solidarity photos, and bring signs, banners, Palestinian flags and keffiyehs!
March 30 is the Day of the Land, when Palestinians and supporters of Palestine commemorate and continue the struggle to remain on the land and to liberate the land from Zionist colonialism. At this Palestine Stand, we will commemorate Land Day and the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation.
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.
Victoria Picket Feb. 5, Organized by CAIA VictoriaVancouver picketPicket outside Victoria liquor store. Vancouver out to say #BoycottIsraeli Wines #EndIsraeliApartheidVictoria PicketVancouver Picket, Feb. 5Collage of photo highlights.
The British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch is complicit in violations of Palestinian human rights. Despite calls from multiple local organizations for a boycott of Israeli wines, many produced in occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, they continue to be sold in publicly owned BC Liquor Stores. Repeated appeals to the provincial cabinet ministers responsible for the Liquor Distribution Branch have seen no action and little response. 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.
From Turtle Island to Palestine, profiting off colonization is a crime!
