Councillor tells the Canary local pressure must continue following Oxford divestment vote

Oxford City Council voted unanimously on Monday 24 March to divest from companies complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. But as councillor Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini told the Canary, a continuation of local pressure is essential to ensure the council follows through.

Djafari-Marbini seconded the motion which called for the council to “actively avoid complicity in Israel’s occupation of Palestine”. And she said:

From the outset, this motion clearly affirmed local authorities’ ethical duty and legal obligation to actively avoid complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and genocidal acts against the Palestinian people. Successive ICJ rulings apply to every branch and level of government, so all councils must take concrete steps to end trade and investment relations and cooperation with entities that legitimise, aid or assist violations of international law. UN experts cited in the motion are clear: if authorities do not act now, international law—the fundamental rights and freedoms on which we all depend—will be forever eroded. No councillor can deny this, particularly in Oxford, a City of Sanctuary that has long stated an explicit commitment to human rights.

“Lengthy and constructive engagement” to get a unanimous vote in Oxford

She also added context about how a unanimous vote on the motion was possible, stressing that:

The movement for Palestinian liberation has always been strong in Oxford; our twinning with Ramallah in 2019 was the culmination of many years of cultural, healthcare worker, trade union and student activism. The local Labour Party lost its majority in the city council when 10 of us resigned from the party due to its leadership’s reprehensible—and indeed criminal—response to Israel’s colonial genocide. It would have been hypocritical and ultimately politically damaging to vote against upholding international law and human rights in an academic city proud of its City of Sanctuary status, human rights positioning and green credentials.

Nonetheless, she pointed out that:

Lengthy and constructive engagement with all parties and council officers was necessary to arrive at wording that could pass unanimously.

Keeping up the pressure

Djafari-Marbini is fully aware, however, that continuing pressure will be necessary to make sure the council respects the vote. She asserted that:

As with all our institutions inherently designed to support and protect the interests of the military industrial complex, this is only the beginning of the process and careful monitoring will now be crucial to ensure the motion is fully implemented. The unanimous vote reflected the strength of the movement in the city, which will be crucial in the months to come. Local residents, activists and councillors will stay mobilised and submit regular questions to the scrutiny committee, and full council.

And she emphasised:

We are resilient and will dismantle Israeli impunity step by step. This is the call of Palestinian civil society and we need to act if not least for the sake of regaining our own humanity.

Djafari-Marbini also shared with the Canary the summing up speech of councillor Barbara Coyne, who proposed the motion, at the vote on 24 March. We will share this below:

No more “wasting time and costing lives”

The situation in Palestine is not complicated.

As Oxford City residents recognise, Britain’s historic and ongoing ties to colonial oppression and lack of decisive action to uphold international law make us complicit in crimes against humanity. When we engage in intellectual or verbal acrobatics to deny realities or justify continued silence, we are wasting time and costing lives.

6% of Gaza’s population has been slaughtered, and 2.1 million survivors are facing “the fastest starvation campaign in modern history”. Over 40,000 have been forcibly displaced in the West Bank, where homes and land are daily destroyed and violently expropriated. Almost 10,000 political prisoners continue to be subjected to systematic abuse and torture, including hundreds of children; Israel killed 46 children per day throughout 2024, and 200 in just 3 days last week.

I truly believe that we have a profound moral duty to act, now, to ensure we do no further harm.

As UN experts cited in this motion emphasise, international law is on a precipice: in the absence of decisive action, all of our fundamental rights and freedoms risk being indelibly eroded. We must understand that none of us are free until all of us are free. And particularly as elected officials, we have a role to play in advancing dignity, freedom, justice and equality for ALL PEOPLE.

“We cannot stand by, in this preeminent university city, when every university in Gaza has been destroyed”

This council has previously acknowledged the vital role of economic action by local authorities in achieving justice (notably in the South African liberation struggle). Palestinians—including those in our twin city of Ramallah—have long called for concrete solidarity, and international law demands it.

We cannot stand by, in this preeminent university city, when every university in Gaza has been destroyed, along with 90% of schools and countless libraries, archives and cultural and heritage sites.

It was an eminent Oxford professor who, in 2009 coined the term “scholasticide” to denote Israel’s decades-long, systematic destruction of Palestinian education, saying, quote “Education posits possibilities, opens horizons. Freedom of thought contrasts sharply with the apartheid wall, the shackling checkpoints, the choking prisons.”

As a city councillor, a teacher and special needs teacher, a parent, a grandparent and a human being—I urge you to join me in voting for this motion and commit to strengthening our Council policies to reaffirm our city’s commitment to human rights and international law. I do not believe we can claim to be addressing the climate emergency, let alone upholding human rights and equality, if we do otherwise.

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