The City of Sydney council will consider scrapping its contracts with companies linked to Israel, including a printing agreement with Hewlett Packard, after Lord Mayor Clover Moore supported a renewed push from the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Moore and her independent team backed a Greens motion on Monday night calling for the state’s wealthiest council to audit divestments that had or could be made to ensure it did not invest in or profit from human rights violations, “including the illegal occupation of the settlements in Palestinian territories, and the supply of weapons”.
It’s the equivalent to light economic sanctions when a large set of customers stop using services and goods from your country
It also helps to buoy the spirits of Palestinians and their supporters. As the partner of someone who’s very involved in the movement (on the streets, in the workplace and elsewhere) wins like this come few and far between the hard slog of campaigning and life in general. It especially stings when people who are otherwise supportive make unhelpful comments, don’t get involved (like me) or are otherwise apathetic. I’m not having a go at @TinyBreak@aussie.zone, they’re not saying anything I sometimes haven’t thought.
Even wins which are on-the-grand-scale symbolic are important demonstrations of what can be done. Take the port actions against ZIM - economically and logistically, the direct impact was a blip. However, they showed that the community can stand side by side in solidarity with union workers taking industrial action. This has a real effect on workers in the industry (and there are reports workers still insider were taking go-slow actions against ZIM) and can translate across to other industries like weapons manufacture. These actions also highlight that Australia isn’t irrelevant: this country is making critical bomber jet components, trading with the Zionist Regime, diplomatically failing to adequately counter the genocidal invasion. There are actions we can take, and if those small actions can grow and snowball, then we can become a meaningful catalyst for change, like we were during South African apartheid and the Vietnam War.