Support Marrickville Council and BDS!!

Dear friends,
Marrickville Council in Sydney, recently became the first municipality in Australia to support the Palestinian initiated BDS campaign. They have since become of the target of a harassment campaign by groups pressuring the councillors to change their conscientious decision.

PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR MARRICKVILLE COUNCIL!

in solidarity, Kim

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Marrickville BDS is seeking support of organisations and individuals to do one or several of these things:

1. Encourage the councillors to stay strong by sending a personal email of support to Fiona Byrne, Mayor of Marrickville fbyrne@marrickville.nsw.gov.au

Copy the addresses of the other councillors into the cc field of your email: etsardoulias@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, mhanna@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, mosullivan@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, polive@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, siskandar@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, mphillips@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, vmacri@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, cpeters@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, lwright@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, mkontellis@marrickville.nsw.gov.au, dthanos@marrickville.nsw.gov.au

Include your name, city and country.

2. Endorse the letter (view here: http://marrickvillebds.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/open-letter.pdf) supporting the right of Marrickville Council to endorse Palestinian BDS call as part of its ethical investment and purchasing strategy.

To add your or your organization’s name to the list of endorsers, email marrickvillebds@y7mail.com with your name and either your suburb or any title/position you would like to include.

3. Please forward this information to others, asking them to add their voice!

4. Post the action alert to Facebook. Suggested thing to post:

ACTION ALERT! Counter the harassment campaign trying to reverse Marrickville’s support for BDS! marrickvillebds.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/hello-world/

5. Tweet. Here’s a suggestion:

ACTION ALERT! A harassment campaign is trying to reverse Marrickville’s BDS victory! marrickvillebds.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/hello-world/ (Savvier tweeters may do better.)

Please email your endorsement to marrickvillebds@y7mail.com as soon as possible, no later than Friday 11 March, 2011.

The open letter will be presented to Marrickville Council at the next meeting. Marrickville BDS will be providing a copy of the letter and a list of signatories to all Councillors. The motion to support the worldwide BDS campaign was supported by 10 councillors; ALP, Green and Independent.


Background Info & Resolution:

In December, 2010, the local council of Marrickville, which is a Sister City to Bethlehem, decided as part of its ethical investment and purchasing strategy, to endorse the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until that country complies with international humanitarian law. More information is available at http://coalitionforpalestine.org/bds/local-government/marrickvillebds or, for links to media articles, http://coalitionforpalestine.org/bds/media-links. Here is the resolution:

That:

1. In particular recognition of its sister city relationship with Bethlehem and the strong support for this relationship from local progressive faith communities and other community members, Marrickville Council support the principles of the BDS global campaign and report back on any links the Council has with organisations or companies that support or profit from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine with a view to the Council divesting from such links and imposing a boycott on any future such links or goods purchases.

2. Marrickville Council boycott all goods made in Israel and any sporting, institutional academic, government or institutional cultural exchanges.

3. Marrickville Council write to the local State and Federal ministers (Carmel Tebbutt and Anthony Albanese) informing them of Council’s position and seeking their support at the State and Federal level for the global BDS movement.