WIMBORNE-IDRISSI, NAOMI. London-based Jewish campaigner for Palestinian rights demands Boycott of Apartheid Israel.

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is a London-based Jewish campaigner for Palestinian rights. She is a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign's Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions committee. In 2006 she helped form Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) to support the work of PSC's BIG campaign. She is also an active member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the largest Jewish organisation in the UK concerned with Palestinian rights (see: http://www.paltelegraph.com/opinions/editorials/1984-boycott-the-sane-response-to-israeli-apartheid and http://www.bigcampaign.org/index.php?page=jbig ).

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and other members of J-BIG to UK media, 2007: “:We welcome the courageous decision of the National Union of Journalists to boycott Israeli goods (Letters, April 23). Given Israel's contempt for international law, with the complicity of the US and UK governments, pressure has to be increased by civil society if justice is to be achieved. A boycott of Israeli goods is a legitimate form of grassroots action and is particularly appropriate as Israel is destroying the Palestinian economy. Such a boycott has been called for by Israeli peace organisations.

As a result of its illegal occupation, Israel is able to flood the Palestinian market with its products, while preventing Palestinian farmers from growing and trading their own. We believe Israel's actions betray Jewish ethical traditions - the cutting down of olive and fruit trees is prohibited by Jewish law. The continuing occupation and exploitation of Palestinian land is a major obstacle to peace for Israelis and Arabs alike which has global implications for world peace.

Deborah Fink, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Mike Cushman, Sylvia Finzi, Tony Greenstein, Ruth Tenne, Deborah Maccoby, Prof Moshe Machover, Mike Marqusee,

Jews for Boycotting Israel Goods.” [1].

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi on boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel, 2009: “The movement to boycott Israel is becoming respectable. In Europe and America as well as in the Middle East and many parts of the developing world, people of conscience - including many Jews - are rejecting anti-Arab prejudice and Zionist mythology and seeing Israel for what it is - an ethnocentric state which deserves to be ostracised just as South Africa was ostracised during the apartheid era. Groups like mine - Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods - support the call made by nearly 200 Palestinian civil society organisations in 2005 for a broad campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, including an institutional academic and cultural boycott, until Israel respects Palestinian human rights and abides by international law.” [2].

[1]. Letter by J-BIG members to UK media, 2007, specifically in the Jewish Chronicle, 27 April 2007 and in the UK Guardian, “Apartheid and boycotts in the Middle East”, 25 April 2007: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/25/israel.comment .

[2]. Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, “Boycott – the sane response to Israeli Apartheid”, The Palestinian Telegraph, 24 August 2009: http://www.paltelegraph.com/opinions/editorials/1984-boycott-the-sane-response-to-israeli-apartheid .