Do no harm, a principle that many associate with the medical practice, has become a fundamental ethical principle of global solidarity the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has mainstreamed since its inception 20 years ago this week.

In the midst of the most depraved phase of Israel’s livestreamed genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip, our unbearable grief makes it impossible to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BDS movement. The Israeli state, enabled and emboldened by the shameless and seemingly boundless military, financial, political and discourse complicity of the US, the European Union and the UK, is trying to normalize the fundamentally abnormal and to numb our consciences with its relentless savagery.

It views the rise to power of its natural allies, far-right, fascist and authoritarian forces in the west and elsewhere, as providing the long coveted opportunity to finally exterminate the survivors of its ongoing Nakba, not gradually as it has been doing for decades, but in one fell swoop. Eliminating the natives, after all, is a feature, not a bug, in settler colonial history.

Yet, our just as uncontainable rage compels us to mark this occasion with reflection, critique, a measure of pride and a whole lot of resolve to carry on no matter what – until the genocide ends and the regime of oppression that has spawned it is ultimately dismantled.

Taking stock of what we have collectively achieved against what seemed like insurmountable obstacles of vilification, intimidation and horrific repression, is about nourishing realistic hope to raise our collective morale. It is about decolonizing our minds from the relentless attempts by Israel and its hegemonic colonial partners in the west to colonize them with powerlessness and despondency. It is also about learning from this long struggle the lessons that will help illuminate our remaining march to freedom.

As early as 1923, the Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote with lucid honesty, “Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised. [...] Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population.........

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