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The siege of Gaza in the Palestinian territories continues with Israeli tanks moving into the area and further threatening to break a cease-fire with Hamas earlier this summer. The tanks “leveled lands” in Gaza according to one news report. Further, the Israeli military has announced it will continue to keep Gaza borders closed because of rocket fire coming from the area toward Israel. Strong international reaction to the isolation of Gazans has not fazed the Israeli government or caused any visible change in policy. This has served to give more impetus to a growing international effort to brand the state of Israel as an apartheid state, similar to the system of systemic oppression of white South Africans against Blacks.

Palestinian rights activist Diana Buttu, and General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, Rev. Eddie Makue are currently on a national tour in the US to draw this comparison and call for an organized effort to boycott, divest, and sanction the Israeli state.

Diana Buttu was born to Palestinian citizens of Israel who moved to Canada to protect their family from the discrimination they faced in their homeland. She has lived in Palestine since 2000 where she worked with the Negotiations Support Unit of the PLO. Rev. Eddie Makue helped to found the Independent Forum on Electoral Education in 1992, the Democracy Education and Lobbying Forum in 1994, and the South African Civil Society Election Observation Coalition in 1998. In 2005, he was a member of an election monitoring delegation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

For more information, visit www.endtheoccupation.org.