100 Days to Palestine

Popular Resistance Movements Environmental Justice Direct Action on B.D.S. Art & Culture Linking Stories of Struggle P.E.D.A.L. is a group of community organisers, artists, food growers and cyclists planning to cycle from London to Palestine in 100 days in Spring 2011.

Campaign managed by: dan glass

Categories: democracy

Campaign location: International

P.E.D.A.L. begins its journey at Grow Heathrow in Sipson for two days of workshops on art & permaculture, environmental justice, storytelling, and discussions with Palestinian and Israeli activists on the 19th and 20th of March.

The living, breathing, cycling tool-kit leaves for the West Bank on the 21st of March to support the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement, and share stories, skills and strategies for resistance from the UK to Palestine.

The bicycle caravan will be cycling in solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli popular resistance movements- responding to the call-out from Palestinian civil society in 2005 to support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign. The ride will trace a trail of corporations complicit in the occupation, pollinate information about the campaign and support activists on trial for BDS actions.

The group will join the dots of counter-cultures resisting injustice through Europe to the Middle East sharing stories, skills and strategies of resistance to create a cultural document for those working to end the illegal Occupation and the wider Global Justice movement.

P.E.D.A.L. will focus on environmental justice issues such as access to land, water and seeds- visiting Reclaim the Fields collectives through Europe and working with farmers in the West Bank to strengthen mutual networks for food autonomy. We are also working with Stop the JNF campaign to expose the greenwashing of the JNF in maintaining Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.

Video, photography, audio and theatre projects will make up a cultural document tracking the stories, experiences and ideas to build strong social movements that support each other in our struggles.

Our aim is to link and empower groups across our route implementing the concept of ‘dual power’; by building networks with groups who are involved in opposing oppression in Palestine as well as those creating new worlds and forms of organising in resistance to social and environmental injustice.

In the shadow cast by the failure of international powers we see the strength and courage of the Israeli and Palestinian popular resistance movements – forcing the change that needs to happen – in fighting for self-reliance, political rights, and liberation.
We are responding to the call-out born from Palestinian civil society in 2005 for international support of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaign.
Our 100 day journey will track communities fighting for social and environmental justice where we will contribute to the sites we visit and share stories, skills and strategies for resistance- mapping counter-cultures from the UK to Palestine.
P.E.D.A.L. will pollinate information, plans and campaigns on BDS to expand the network fighting the occupation. We will trace a trail of those who profit-from and are complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestine- highlighting their involvement in settlement trade and normalizing the Israeli sta
We will focus on the BDS campaign of highlighting the role of the Jewish National Fund in removing access to land for Palestinians in the name of environmentalism.
And during the 100 days we will visit and work with communities resisting those who prevent access to land and community control of resources linking peasant movements across Europe to the Middle East.
P.E.D.A.L. cycles in solidarity with groups using legal structures to bring justice to those who deepen the occupation, and also those using civil disobedience as necessary action.
Through popular education and creative methods in the communities we visit P.E.D.A.L. will celebrate the cultures and arts of resistance and form a document of the messages of solidarity, stories of hope and strategies for radical political change.
As we collect the material for the document we will share this through video and audio diaries building dialogue between the ride, the communities on the route and grassroots movements in Israel and Palestine.
We are committed to integrating an anti-oppression framework and analysis into all of our work. This means addressing whose voices are heard, which priorities are chosen, what actions are taken, who does the work, and who gets the credit.

www.100daystopalestine.org