Nigerian activists seek boycott of Israel

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - Thousands of Nigerian activists and Muslim scholars on Tuesday called on the international community to boycott Israel.

At a rally commemorating 100 years of the Balfour Declaration, activists and academics called on the United Nations and other global bodies to isolate Israel and its backers in their alleged continued disrespect for the two-state solution of the crisis.

Organized by the Muslim Awareness International (MAI), activities at the rally included two lectures and a stage play that drew attention to the plight of the Palestinians.

“The international community must prevail on the State of Israel to obey all United Nations resolutions concerning the Palestine,” Dele Ashiru, a teacher at the University of Lagos, said in an address titled ‘From owners to refugees: The Palestinians and the struggle for self-determination in the Middle East’.

“Israeli belligerence represents both present and future danger for lasting peace in the Middle East and globally. The United States of America must reverse the declaration and recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Ashiru added.

Abdul Waheed Atoyebi, the MAI chief, praised countries of the world, activists and intellectuals who have keyed into the BDS campaign -- a strategy Atoyebi said would help to isolate Tel Aviv if fully supported by powerful nations of the world.

“(The international community) owes it a duty to continue to support and promote the BDS (Boycott, Sanction and Divestment) movement which is gaining ground around the world and checking the aggression of the Zionist state,” Atoyebi said.

The Balfour Declaration was a letter sent by Britain’s then foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Walter Rothschild, a prominent Zionist leader, on Nov. 2, 1917.

In the letter, Balfour declares his government’s support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.