Social AFZ
Cultural AFZ
Hospitality AFZ
Union AFZ
Local business AFZ
Local government institutions
OVERVIEW
The Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ) campaign, as part of the BDS movement, seeks to foster the creation of progressive, intersectional spaces across the world, that are free of Israel’s genocide, apartheid and settler colonialism, and which bring together multiple struggles for justice and equality.
An organization, union or local business that wants to become an Apartheid Free Zone commits to refrain from providing any kind of support to Israel’s regime of oppression. This objective can be achieved through a number of measures, depending on your local socio-political context.
Take a look at our AFZ Organizing Guide and Toolkit and learn more about this campaign, and how to foster new AFZ in your city, cultural center or other community spaces!
WHY?
Over the last two decades, people of conscience and grassroots organizations have built BDS campaigns to end complicity with apartheid Israel. As Israel’s genocide against Palestinians rages on, these struggles have shown the importance of creating sustainable spaces to nurture the movement and build concrete solidarity for the Palestinian people.
As people of conscience, we want to ensure that the spaces in which we participate do not contribute to the maintenance of a genocidal apartheid regime, benefit from grave human rights violations, or become influenced or shaped by any of the former. Israel’s genocidal war against the 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip has increased the importance of expanding AFZs: there is no business as usual under apartheid and genocide.
BUILDING AFZs IS A JOURNEY
We see the AFZ campaign as a journey to be embarked on by grassroots communities, businesses, unions, and organizations wishing to end complicity in apartheid and build spaces that aspire to be ultimately free of all forms of oppression.
Find below the concrete steps listed by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) leading the BDS movement globally. These steps apply for every space to become an AFZ, starting with identifying any complicity with Israel’s settler colonial, apartheid, and genocide regime:
Find below the concrete steps listed by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) leading the BDS movement globally. These steps apply for every space to become an AFZ, starting with identifying any complicity with Israel’s settler colonial, apartheid, and genocide regime:
Commit to cutting all ties with apartheid Israel and all its complicit institutions, as well as with corporations that are implicated in its gross human rights violations.
Cut all ties with BDS priority targets and divest, where applicable, from companies listed by authoritative UN and civil society research groups.
Continue your journey in standing intersectionally with other justice struggles and participating actively in BDS campaigns to ultimately have your space free as much as feasible from all forms of oppression. For this, refer to our expansive database of complicit companies.
