 Thank you, Gautam, for that introduction and for the parallels that you've drawn. Moving on from the parallels that exist and the relations that exist between Israel, Latin America and Israel and India, it would be great now to move on to what are the ways in which we can coalesce to fight this, important amongst those being the call for military embargo against Israel, given by the BDS movement. I'd just like to point out that last year in the light of the killings in Gaza, even Amnesty International has endorsed that demand. So to say that it's becoming increasingly popular, and I would now hand over the floor to Marin to actually talk about this demand and how we can work around it. Thanks a lot. It was really interesting to hear the contributions from Pedro and Gautam and shocking at the same time to see what we are experiencing every day in Palestine, whether that's a targeted killing of activists or the surveillance systems are really every day happening and being exported in the rest of the world. Evidently, what you do question is always the key question when we're talking about these things. The Palestinian civil society has actually given us the tool to work effectively to make a significant change in all of this one. In fact, in 2005, when Palestinian civil society and over 170 organizations representing Palestinian refugees, Palestinians under military occupation in the West Bank in Gaza and Palestinians, citizens of Israel, but completely disenfranchised in an apartheid system have come together and have called for boycott, divestment and sanctions and have launched this global movement that has been modeled on various experiences, boycott experiences from India to the U.S. civil rights movement to others, but very much has been inspired and developed in encounters with South African activists that at that time were struggling against the South African variety of apartheid. And within that framework of boycott, divestment and sanctions, i.e. the call to cut ties of complicity that is empowering people to work at home to stop Israeli apartheid, the question of a military embargo is absolutely key. It is key because military and military ideology is evidently at the heart of Israel's regime of apartheid and because evidently without the weapons and the technology methodology around it, Israel couldn't continue to do what it is doing. It is key as well because it's an absolute no-brainer. I mean, it should be absolutely evident. It should be absolutely self-evident for anybody that wants to stand up to a minimum of ethics, to a minimum of respect for human rights that going and providing weapons to Israel or buying weapons that are coming out of that laboratory of apartheid that is Israel is simply wrong. But I think the important part here is as well to understand two key aspects of the military embargo, especially when we're talking about the global south. Many people are thinking that the question of a military embargo is something about ending U.S. military aid to Israel and U.S. military support to Israel. Evidently, we have to work on that one. But I do think it is absolutely fundamental to understand that actually Israeli military capacity would not be possible without the global south. 70% of its production in the military sector is for export and this export does not go to the U.S. This export does not go to Europe or to a very small percentage because in those countries, in those regions, they're the big military companies that will defend their markets with everything they can. Those weapons, those technologies go to the global south. India last year has bought 49% of all Israeli military exports. Brazil, Colombia are the big buyers of that one. So what one needs to understand is that that is a key aspect of military campaigning that we need to stop. It cannot be that the people in the global south with their tax money, because it's their tax money, are financing Israeli occupation and at the same time paying the price on their own skin as well. So I do think that's an important part to understand. An important part to understand, and Peter was already saying that as well, is that we're not only talking about contracts on a federal government level where many of us in the global south are going, like whether that's the Modi government in India, whether that's the Bolsonaro government in India, how are we going to talk to these people if we even want to talk to these people, but to convince them to stop military relations. So that looks like a kind of mission impossible. But when one understands that Israel's military is not only about war, but has entered in all spaces of society, then one can understand as well that military embargo campaigning can be pretty close to home, because that means that we have on the one hand cities and state governments directly involved with Israeli military companies, whether that's in the forms of police training, whether that's in the forms of public security contracts, whether that's in the forms of cyber security contracts, and whether that's in the forms of technology parks. Israel more and more in the global south is working on joint ventures together with military companies in the global south, within a framework of growing privatization as well of the military sector, which is another problem that we may want to tackle. So we have Israeli companies very close to home in our technology parks and we have Israeli military companies in our universities and research centers, whether that is developing high tech, whether that is developing the ideology and the doctrines for it. All these issues and all these technologies and tools are pretty close to home, even if you cannot convince your Congress or your government. And I do think just to give a couple of examples, we have shown that it is possible. The idea to say military embargo is the last thing we can achieve, but maybe sometimes it's the first thing we can achieve. For example, in Brazil the biggest and first victory was the military embargo campaign in Piddle can maybe talk a bit more about that. It was a campaign on Elbit systems, but Elbit systems today has, or two weeks ago, has just seen another big impact of the BDS movement when HSBC, one of the biggest companies around the world, has given in to the pressure of the BDS movement and has decided to divest from Elbit systems. And it's of the first bank. Since 2007 we're working on divestments from Elbit systems, and there are over a dozen among the biggest banks and pension funds around the world that have already divested from Elbit systems. Police training, if one thinks that the worst thing to do is trying to build up a BDS movement in a country like the US and the Trump, I can tell you we have victories on the level of local councils in the US where local councils have decided that their local police is not going to be trained by Israeli military or security companies. So it is possible. It is possible to achieve these victories. And the question is how do we build up the alliances so that we are strong enough to actually achieve steps forward in this sense. And I guess it is when you're talking about these alliances it's important to understand as well that considering that our political situation almost globally is getting dramatically worse and the question of militarism and defense of human rights, defense of protection of human rights defenders is unfortunately becoming ever a bigger concern around the world. We do have a common ground with people around the world to join the struggle. It is important we work together. We don't see this question of a military embargo it's only a Palestinian solidarity issue. It is a global issue. It is an issue of human rights around the world. And in this sense I guess we can continue to create victories and I hope we can see as well very soon a few steps forward and victories in India and in Latin America it's overdue. We continue with a bit more victories as well in that sense. I'll leave it here for now. Thanks, thanks Madan. Pedro if you could talk about a few of the victories and also how to organize around this question as your experience has been from Latin America. So thanks a lot Madan and Gautam for your interventions. Yeah I want to start more modern life. You know the idea that this is actually possible that we actually can have an impact. I think this is very very important in the context we are all living now. You and India with the Modi government, we and Brazil with the Somali government and the extreme rights rising everywhere it is important for us to see that our movements are actually having an impact and many times our group proves that. And before I share with you some concrete experiences around it I just want to bring a very quick reflection on why. Why this is actually effective. Why this is the way for us to go. And the reason is because this is how real solidarity works. I'll tell you in the case of Brazil. At the same time the Brazilian government during a progressive government recognized the Palestinian states which one could consider a very interesting act of solidarity that those same governments were the ones that converted Brazil into fourth or fifth biggest Israeli arms and border in the world. So in one hand you say something in the other hand you're doing a totally different thing. And the Palestinians have been very clear to us that what they need now is not charity is not discourse or not more decorations what they need is concrete solidarity. And that means first hearing their appeal hearing the oppressed. It's not us from Brazil or from India that are going to tell Palestinians how to pursue their freedom just as an equality. We should fight with them not for them. And that means hearing their appeal. And their appeal is clear. We must cut ties of our governments of our organizations with complicit companies and with the Israeli government and its regime of apartheid expansion and colonization. And military embargo is a central thing on this. The other reason why military embargo is so effective it's because it's connecting our struggles. You could ask me but Peter, how come people in Favella that are worried with their lives every day under brutal military actions and brutal racism that affects black and poor people in this country are talking about Palestine and are mobilizing for it. And Gautam could prove that what I'm saying is true that because he saw that in the meeting we organized in Rio where mothers of people that were killed by the military police were leading the whole process of denouncing Israel's connection to that because fighting for military embargo and answering the Palestinian call for boycott, advisement and sanction for them is not only a principled matter of supporting the policy and struggle for freedom, justice and equality it's also a matter of fighting for their own rights for that last kids will be killed by the police using those technologies for that our society won't get more and more militarized with those partnerships. And we can't undermine the importance of these connections and this is what our oppressors hear most because it's not something that we're doing because we believe it's good to do we're doing this because this is the only way we can pursue our social and just struggles our oppressors are already connected it's not a matter of believing it it's as we said numbers and contracts and companies the same companies are affecting us here and there coming from Israel so if we don't connect ourselves we'll lose that struggle and third and with that I'll give you some concrete examples through connecting our struggles we're actually achieving concrete results that have an impact on Israel and its economy and the military system as much to the point that we are trying to stop our movement and criminalize BDS and stop military margo to grow even more the campaign that Madan mentioned around Elbit in Brazil is a clear example of how these three elements hearing the call of the Palestinian people connecting our struggles and having an effective impact can be put into place that agreement only felt because of the mobilizing of different sectors of civil society in brazil that understood that that was damaging for our own reality but also responded to the Palestinian call trade unions, students, social movements, feminist movements parties involved in different governments and the coalitions at that time they all realized that that was a struggle we had to take together and that campaign managed first to break an academic side of the agreement and then here we can see the importance of the students mobilizing around it that agreement had part of it that involved universities in the south of Brazil and those students managed to mobilize and they were denouncing that their tax money in a public university was going for a partnership that produces the knowledge on how to repress people instead of an emancipatory knowledge or knowledge that is useful for Brazilian society then we had to show public actors on how that money was being put in a place that wasn't really where it should be billions of dollars going to a deal with a foreign military company while the country has several economic internal crises a lot of priorities around social inequality and even companies in the military sector in brazil facing challenges in the global economy and that money was being put into a foreign company so we had to show public actors how that wasn't even a reasonable thing to do in their own rationality and this is really important for us to understand how military and local campaigns work and how they can be actually implemented I mentioned to you different examples of other companies and I'll use G4S as an example of another campaign for us to to make this reflection a little bit more concrete and with that I'll conclude G4S as I said is involved in violations and against Palestinians but it's also involved in the privatization of private security around the world incarceration of black and poor and the U.S. private security in different countries in brazil detention of migrants in Europe detention of migrants in South Africa it's a company that's involved in different human rights violations all those people that felt somehow violated by that company and all different allies around the world got together in this company bringing these connections into light and this is the reason why G4S lost so many contracts because when we were campaigning against G4S we were not talking only about what G4S was doing against Palestinians we're also denouncing that G4S was responsible for the privatization of prisons in the U.S. or that G4S was violating workers rights in Uruguay to the point that the workers from the union inside G4S workers from the company they passed a resolution saying that we should support the campaign against that company because they're violating their rights as well appeared with several questions in Uruguay because they are promoting a monopoly of the private security sector in that small Latin American country while at the same time violating human rights in Palestine so these connections can appear vague if one doesn't see how concrete they are and the real impacts that they have on companies such as G4S that lost so many contracts that had to leave the prison system that was incarcerating Palestinians in Israel so when we see that we realize that if we connect our struggles and if we strategize if we do our research if we find a good aim and we work and to the point that we break that one deal and after we break that one deal we find another deal to break that other deal because sometimes when you're doing this type of struggle it comes from a mind that you know it's impossible as Madan said you know there is no no chance that we're going to convince Maldi to not have military relations with Israel but that's not how campaigning works we need to be we need to be strategical and choose maybe local targets or maybe cooperation agreements that doesn't involve money because they are easier to break but they will bring as much as damage to those companies or even more sometimes because of the because they will damage their image because they will stop future contracts to happen so let's find targets local if needed let's find partnerships with universities let's find different ways that we can build up the strength that will accumulate for a comprehensive military embargo against Israel's appetite let's work with students movements and see if universities are connected to partnerships or to companies that are connected let's pass resolutions with those students movements that will then convert into action and campaign that will actually break those agreements let's work with unions because workers in the private security sector also suffering a lot by those companies let's work with feminists movements that can see the impact of militarization in women's and queer lives let's work with social movements and land landless movements small farmers movements that see the impact of militarization in their daily lives from not being able to access their land or from losing that land to securitization of spaces as we see in Brazil as we see in India so when we see mothers in Rio who lost their children joining mothers from Palestine in this struggle for me lives no doubt that we are stronger than our oppressors they might be even reacting strongly against our movement specifically because of that because they are afraid that these connections have the power and they're proving to have an effective impact against their system of oppression so I think Militar Margo is a very concrete example of how efficient our solidarity can be and how it's needed that we connect our struggles in very specific concrete media campaigns that we design with strategy and with an alliance that talks about the different struggles that are involved and there's systems of oppression and that brings into light how Israel is connected to these different processes I have no doubt that you and India face a lot of challenges in mobilizing in general as we face in Brazil but again when we have a concrete campaign it has been proved to us that it's the most efficient way to mobilize if you have a concrete goal one contract to break people have a reason to go to meetings people have a reason to be there every day and once that contract is done is over people actually see a concrete conclusion to a larger struggle of course we're not ending oppression and militarization in India by breaking one of those contracts but we are challenging that system in a very concrete way and we are showing to people that it's actually possible to have victories in a world where the extreme right is growing so fast Thanks Thanks Pedro for those experiences and those very concrete examples which we as we are starting our work on this in India could really learn from Gautam one way of getting taking up the issue of military embargo maybe since most of the military companies that have joined ventures in India have it with the large corporate houses which are already in this favor in the public imagination for a variety of reasons and these are multinationals because these are they have operations outside India too and they raise a lot of money from international capital market exactly as it happened in the case of Sterlite where people could lobby hard and get the investors to back down from investing in Sterlite corporation which was wrecking the lives of indigenous people similarly there are many large corporations which have large operations even outside India both in terms of raising of funds as well as maybe when we are targeting for instance Elbit has a tire in India with one of the largest corporate houses which is very very close to the right wing government in power right now it's called Adani Adani is already a notorious company in Australia where the Australians have been campaigning relentlessly against them being given coal mining rights in Carmichael and some other areas too Tasmania too the point I'm trying to make is that's a perhaps a joint effort where we target the joint venture partners who happen to be Indians but these are multinational corporations with international linkages if we target them that is one thing that struck me when I was listening to the two of you the other thing is where I take off from what Maran said and I think that's single most important point for us to consider that the divide between war and peace the difference between war and peace has blurred under the name of subconventional operations and under the name of the disguise of under the guise of fighting terrorism which has no it's something so diffused now and they're saying that it operates that it's actually the more dangerous during peace times than even in war that in what situation you can handle this better but in peace times it becomes much more difficult the point I'm trying to make is that this this blurring of distinction and the permanent war like situations that operates today where the police is arming itself and getting more militarized and becoming more adept at firing shoot to kill then they are at controlling crowds maintaining peace detecting crime preventing crime from taking place it's taking on a role which is very very disturbing maybe when if we were to focus I'm just loud thinking maybe if we were to focus in India to raise this issue in this manner we might be able to bring in the question of military embargo against Israel in a far more effective way than we have either to be able to I'm just thinking about maybe we have to be more innovative in terms of doing things and carrying them out in a country like India where there is support for Palestinian people there is no doubt about it and this is noticeable even in the fact that the even the most extreme right-wing government which is in power is compelled to at least hypocritically to pay homage to the Palestinian people and their struggle which is because of the weight the 70 years weight of support I mean the support that India has lent to the Palestinian cause but this is whittling down and its its its and the relation with Israel is growing maybe we have to therefore think and become more innovative and bring in the Indian element in this equation to to to to start a campaign or to to make a campaign more vigorous and robust across the country and also get a lot more support than we have been able to generate so far and again targets like like HP for example become a part of as campaigning has shown for example what HP does in terms of its registering of IDs in terms of colonialism it has its facility in illegal settlement it's been involved with the Israeli military now that's a target that is very appealing and at the same level it builds the grassroots demand for military embargo as we're saying that it is something that doesn't start top down but actually bottom up so targets even for our campaigning range from something like HP to actually even G4S to the fact that people in in Tutukuri have already been protesting against Vedanta and that they have been attacked in that process by a police trained by Israel I mean and actually when when that happened in Bangalore there was a demonstration organized together talking about Marin was there talking about Vedanta and HP talking about corporate impunity and violence and I guess the bottom line in all of this is that it's we couldn't we will never reach a point where experiences are absolutely photocopied but it is patterns that are similar it has powers that are similar and and as was said earlier that if our oppressors are so united it's high time that our resistance is also came more united thanks a lot Marin, Pedro and Gautam for today yeah and thank you and thank you Marin and thank you Pedro for this occasion to interact with them after a break of seven months pleasure pleasure thank you thank you for watching People's Dispatch