On Saturday 24th March England are playing Israel in a Euro 2008 qualifier match in Israel. The Boycott Israeli Goods campaign will hold a vigil in protest at the match and to call for a sporting boycott of apartheid Israel.

The vigil will commemorate those Palestinian children killed while playing football. From September 2000 to December 2006 869 Palestinian children have been killed, a quarter of those were under twelve. Every month an average of fourteen will die. Many have been killed just playing football.

The Boycott Israeli Goods campaign is responding to calls from Palestine and Israeli campaigners against for a boycott of apartheid Israel. Israel has been engaged in the illegal military occupation of Palestinian land since 1967 and operates an entrenched system of racial discrimination against it non-Jewish citizens.

During the campaign against apartheid South Africa supporters of justice boycotted South African sport. It is necessary to boycott Israeli sport until it complies with international humanitarian law.

The vigil will be attended by Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG). J-BIG were formed earlier this year to belie the myth that the boycott campaign is anti-Jewish.

The vigil signals the start of a larger campaign in protest against Israel’s inclusion in Euro 2008. England are scheduled to play Israel in London this September.

www.bigcampaign.org
Contact  boycott@palestinecampign.org
Tel 02077006192, 07845039980

Notes to Editors:
1. For comments please call 07845039980, 02077006192
2. The Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign aims to build a mass movement calling for boycott of Apartheid Israel.

3. On 9th June 2005 a coalition of Palestinian Civil Society Organisations issued a ‘Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it complies with International Law’.

See  http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/BDSEnglish.pdf for the full
statement and signatories.

4. Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights in 1967 in contravention of international law.

Since then Israel has moved over 380,000 settlers into these occupied territories in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention (article 49),the Hague Regulations and United Nations Security Council Resolutions.
Israel continues to build an illegal apartheid wall inside the West Bank despite the Advisory Ruling of the International Court of Justice in 2005 that the wall is illegal. Fifty five illegal Israeli settlements will be on the Israeli side of the wall separated from the West Bank.

Since 2000 Israel has demolished 628 Palestinian houses, home to 3, 983 people, in acts of collective punishment. These demolitions constitute a war crime. (Above statistics confirmed by Israeli Information Centre Btselem see www.btselem.org)

3, 808 Palestinians have been killed as a direct result of Israeli military actions and 29, 456 injured during the current upraising which began in September 2000.