As the second Freedom Flotilla packs its humanitarian aid and prepares to brave the wrath of the Israeli navy, boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) activities continue on the homefront, notes Eric Walberg

Earlier this month, 100 activists from 9 countries gathered in Montpellier, France for the first European Forum Against Agrexco to strengthen the boycott campaign against Israel’s largest fresh produce exporter, which exports under the brand Carmel primarily to European markets. Up to 70 per cent of the fruit and vegetables grown in the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank are marketed by Agrexco, making it a prime strategic target for BDS.

Turkey’s vibrant democracy is an inspiration to Arab countries throwing off their autocratic yoke and their Western patrons, says Eric Walberg

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) renewed mandate puts the electoral seal of approval on its shift towards the Middle East, even as its importance to Europe increases. Now Turkey itself is being courted by both NATO countries and, increasingly, the Arab world.

So said a Holocaust survivor and anti-apartheid activist about his trip to Jackson, Mississippi in 1961. The same impulse inspires BDS activists from all walks of life today, says Eric Walberg

International boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activities got a boost at the founding conference of the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS in Ramallah on 30 April. It called on trade unions around the world to sever all links with the Israel labour federation Histadrut. Histadrut protects illegal Israeli workers in the settlements and doesn’t protect the legal Palestinian workers there, having withheld almost $2.5 billion of their wages over the years, deducted for “social and other trade union benefits” that they have never received.

There was good and bad news on the political front in the past month. Scottish voters rejected the pro-war, pro-Israel Labour Party and elected the Scottish Nationalist Party, whose leader leader Alex Salmond supports sanctions against Israel.

Osama bin Laden was born 10 March 1957 in Riyad to Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Yemeni-born Saudi construction billionaire with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan 2 May 2011 in a CIA-directed targeted assassination.

The upcoming flotilla to break the Gaza siege is gathering steam from a flood of innovative Boycott, Divest and Sanctions activities around the world, says Eric Walberg

From 7-20 March, more than 75 university groups on six continents held their seventh annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). According to Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, “Our South Africa moment has finally arrived.” “ Israel’s version of apartheid is more sophisticated than South Africa’s was. It’s an evolved form,” explains Barghouti in his hot-off-the-press BDS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. “In South Africa, the overall plan was to exploit blacks, not throw them out.”