BDS refers to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, a Palestinian-led nonviolent protest movement using boycotts against Israel, divestment, and economic sanctions to pressure Israel’s government to submit to international law and change its policies towards its Palestinian citizens. Boycotting is the action of refusing to buy or cooperate as a form of protest, usually on an individual level. Divestment focuses on reducing investments through selling stock, on institutional, organizational or company levels. Sanctions are official penalties (like trade tariffs), taken by the federal government — in the United States, this is through the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
As of 2023, 38 states have passed anti-BDS laws, designed to punish companies that boycott Israel. In 2020, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for all countries to "recognize the BDS movement for the cancer that it is." Much of the debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been shrouded in dogma, exacerbated by an increasingly partisan divide. BDS as of late has become a popular tactic espoused by international supporters of Palestine, a political movement that struggled to gain traction for years trended on social media sites under #BDSMovement. Users called for boycotts of massive companies like McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza, and Starbucks. At the same time, vitriol about the movement has heightened — Republican Senator (R-FL) Marco Rubio reintroduced the Combating BDS Act into the Senate, calling BDS the “single most destructive campaign of economic warfare against the Jewish state of Israel.” This article seeks to examine the BDS movement as an effective form of consumer activism and a legitimate exercise of free speech, as well as the danger of an anti-boycott legislature.
Since its formation in 2005, the movement has been subject to charges of anti-semitism by supporters of Israel and diluting efforts by being ineffective and divisive by supporters of Palestine. The Israeli government has spent millions of dollars lobbying against its efforts and the Israel lobby within the US has made anti-BDS one of its primary concerns. In 2017, the government banned all supporters of BDS from entering Israel. The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in 2016 said that the goal of his government was “so that it will simply be illegal to boycott Israel." Anti-BDS laws in the United States are either contract-based, compelling government contractors against boycotting Israel, or investment-based, obliging public investment funds to avoid groups or corporations boycotting Israel. Meanwhile, free speech organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American–Islamic Relations have challenged these laws in court. According to a poll from the University of Maryland in 2019, 72% of Americans oppose anti-BDS laws.
BDS itself is a political action rather than a typical organized group, but its goal, defined by co-founder Omar Barghouti, revolve around three core demands: to end the occupation and colonization of Arab lands and the dismantlement of the West Bank barrier, a recognition of the fundamental equal rights of Palestinian citizens to full equality, and the rights of refugees to return to their homes and properties, as proposed in UN Resolution 194. BDS is modeled after the Anti-Apartheid Movement, a British organization that opposed the South African apartheid system through organized consumer boycotts. Supporters of BDS compare the Palestinian struggle to that of black South Africans under British colonial rule, based on the forceful displacement of an indigenous population, the division of citizens into groups with disparate rights, and restriction of movement and forceful quashing of resistance. Several Organizations and human rights groups have declared that Israel meets the definition of an apartheid state, including the United Nations, the African National Congress, as well as several prominent Israeli figures and NGOs. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, known for his anti-apartheid activism in South Africa, said the parallels between Israel and South Africa were “painfully stark.”
Calls for the boycott of Israel originated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian grassroots and civil society organizations, following the International Court of Justice’s opinion that the Israeli-built West Bank wall was a violation of international law. At the time, more than 4 million Palestinians had been displaced. BDS itself is a political tactic, not necessarily a traditional hierarchical organization, while the movement's leadership is atomized and lacks concrete structure. Its broad focus is on utilizing peaceful protest to pressure Western support of the Israeli government, hoping to focus the narrative on Palestinian rights, composed of unions, academic associations, churches, and grassroots movements. The BDS movement describes itself as an antiracist movement, focused on struggles against racism, sexism, and poverty: Barghouti states that BDS challenges the ‘tyranny’ of corporations, and thus becomes a “small but critical part” in a struggle against socioeconomic inequality and injustices.
The range of BDS actions are from individual consumer actions like abstaining from certain companies to calling on governments and politicians to impose sanctions against Israel. One common request is for the conditioning of military aid on a federal level. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders wrote in an opinion for the New York Times to call for the end of the American “blank check” to Israel, stressing the defense of international law and decency. In the original 2005 declaration, BDS organizers urged strictly “nonviolent punitive measures.” Barghouti emphasized that BDS “considers violence targeting noncombatants as illegal and immoral.” This is underscored by his belief that any Palestinian violence is a reaction of the oppressed to violence from the oppressor, and not equivocal.
That is not the belief of all supporters of BDS: several prominent figures and organizations have varying ends from the act of boycotting. While the organization stresses a one-state solution with the unencumbered right of return for displaced Palestinians, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has both publicly endorsed BDS while calling for a two-state solution. Advocacy groups like the Jewish Voice for Peace (an anti-Zionist left-wing Jewish activist organization), Democratic Socialists of America, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights have endorsed BDS as a political strategy, just as the ACLU has defended BDS’ right to exist, all with differing solutions to the international conflict. However, supporters are united by the focus on nonviolent activism, and go beyond political figures. Musician Lauryn Hill, writers Naomi Klein and Sally Rooney are among others in the creative media field to support BDS. Support in the United States has grown: a survey from February suggested that one in five Americans approved of BDS as a way of opposing Israeli policy. A 2018 University of Maryland poll of a much larger sample put American support at 40 percent.
BDS has a history of accomplishments: boycotts include not just Israeli products and companies, but corporations the movement claims are complicit in Palestinian oppression, like SodaStream, an Israel-based manufacturing company. One current BDS target is Hewlett Packard (HP) known for its printers, due to the charge that its tech has aided Israel in surveillance with biometric ID systems. BDS made definitive gains: Ben & Jerry’s and French telecommunications company Orange SA both agreed to stop selling in occupied Palestinian territories. When Orange ended its business in Israel, SodaStream closed its West Bank factory in 2014. BDS successfully pushed government pension funds in Luxembourg, New Zealand, and Norway to divest from Israel. Meanwhile, cultural boycotts have been particularly prominent in the United States. American musician Sam Smith canceled a show in Israel after BDS pushback in May. Other musicians who have canceled or postponed performances or visits to Israel as an expression of BDS include singers Lauryn Hill in 2015, Lana Del Rey in 2018, Lorde in 2018, as well as Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett in 2017.
There is a lot of potential for American protest, particularly in the realm of sanctions: some politicians have called for policies like an embargo on providing weapons and military aid to the cessation of trade and diplomacy with israel. More centrist policies focus on conditions of aid to Israel, which is increasingly popular in the US. The US has sent $158 billion in aid to ISrael, and the Biden admin has proposed another $106 billion foreign aid package, $14 billion of which is for Israel. The US vetoed a UN security Council resolution for a humanitarian pause in Gaza — while nearly sixty percent of Israelis and two-thirds of Americans are in favor of a ceasefire and de-escalation,. Even while a majority of Americans support Israel, a CBS news poll showed that fewer than half of respondents wanted to send military aid and supplies to Israel. Despite lacking popular support (and even less so within the Democratic Party), the Biden administration has staunchly emphasized conditionless aid — despite a statement that Biden suggested it was a “worthwhile thought” and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s criticism of Israel’s actions in the Gaza offensive. Blinken stated that “The way Israel defends itself matters. It’s imperative that Israel act in accordance with international humanitarian law and the laws of war.”, but without any sanctions or conditions of aid, the emphasis on human rights cannot be enforced. It is an ultimately empty sentiment. Politicians, in a classic view of democracy, are meant to reflect their constituents, and BDS is a tactic to enforce this. Voters must put pressure on their politicians to express their political opinions.
There is a history of the American government using economic sanctions to express disapproval of wartime actions by other countries: there are nearly 100 sanctions on Russian elites and institutions to undercut Russia’s actions in its war against Ukraine. Since 2009, the US has
The 2016 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act,
Evidence of human rights violations in israel
Many of the accusations of antisemitism are focused on the claim that the movement’s goal is the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. Equality for its Arab citizens requires altering existing laws that automatically grant Jews citizenship, and defining the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Granting the right of return to Palestinians would end a Jewish majority.
The right of return principle divides BDS supporters and the left-wing generally, though this comes down to a question of imagination, and is not inherently mutually exclusive. As references earlier, BDS supporters do not have a hegemonic solution to the conflict, but rather, use it as a method of ensuring the protection of human rights and as a form of political activism. BDS is a political tool, not a strict ideology.
In 2019, the House voted 398 to 17 to support a bill denouncing B.D.S. for allegedly promoting “principles of collective guilt, mass punishment and group isolation.” The bill claims that BDS tries to “end the right to Jewish national self-determination on any portion of this contested land.” Pro-Israel nonprofit the Jewish National Fund filed a lawsuit against the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights using the Anti-Terrorism Act made extreme claims, painting BDS participants as supporters of terrorism led by Hamas and Jihad. While the lawsuit was dismissed, it is very much the crux of the accusation. Many supporters of BDS are faced with these questions: are you antisemitic? Do you condemn Hamas?
The BDS movement’s goals are established by international law and UN guidelines. UN guidelines mandate the right of resistance to military occupation and colonization. UNGA Res. 37/43) and UNGA Res. 45/130, focus on strictly not targeting non-combatants, which BDS upholds.
BDS calls for a democratic state with self sovereignty; a democratic state could still allow asylum for Jewish refugees. The question of anti-Zionism is not anti-semticism. The Palestinian BDS National Committee officially opposes anti-semitism and encourages its proponents to select boycott targets based on human rights violations and likelihood to succeed rather than national origin or religious identity. The goal of BDS is more primarily to focus on Palestinians and supporting the protection of human rights.
One common line of rhetoric revolves on the idea of why BDS focuses on human rights violations in Israel, and not, say, China with the treatment of Uyghur Muslims or modern slavery in North Korea. This practice of whataboutism neglects the fact that Palestinians who are fighting for their own equal rights do not have to give the same amount of attention to other groups before prioritizing their own liberty. The same criticism was once lobbied against supporters of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Fighting for the right of self determination and sovereignty in an indigenous land — and safeguarding human rights in Palestine is not any weaker for the fact that other countries also violate international law.
. Focuses on the understanding of Israel as a colonial project.
Roots of Israel as supported by Britain: Jewish Colonization Association (now known was the Jewish Charitable Association)
Despite some victories, BDS is categorized as unsuccessful by its critics: despite the few pullouts, Israel’s foreign direct investment is at an all time high. Due to the Israeli economy’s dependence on commodity exports rather than sales of
“Despite scattered pullouts from Israel by some companies, foreign direct investment in Israel is at an all-time high. Israel’s economy is well-suited to resist boycotts because it is less dependent on exports of commodities, which can be sourced elsewhere, than on sales of intellectual property, like software, and business-to-business products, against which it is harder to mobilize consumers. And while Ireland advanced legislation to ban imports of goods produced by Israeli settlements on the West Bank last year, the BDS movement acknowledges that few foreign governments have imposed sanctions on Israel.”
A 2015 report estimated that Israel’s GDP would lose around 15 billion (rand corporation); still a tiny portion of its GDP of more than $500 billion. Bloomberg reported foreign investment in Israel fell significantly in 2023: due to turmoil and military conflict and Netanyahu’s increasingly authoritarian right-wing government and mass protests from israeli citizens and investigation
“Brad Sherman, the Democrat, admits: “Am I worried about the overall B.D.S. movement worldwide as an economic matter? No. As an effort to delegitimize Israel, of course.” Some studies argue that bds has had little impact on israel economy “But these are exceptions to the fact that by all measures, Israel’s normalization in the world is complete.” BDS has also been conflated/inflated by “pro israel” groups— McCarthyism attacks on pro-Palestinian BDS supporters (harvard crimson) Boycotts have been used for years — boston tea party, montgomery bus, anti-trangsegnder law, The boycott against bud miller by the right; its a tool to express political expression and challenge (perceived) injustice. Most boycotts are unsuccessful!
Boycotts are criticized for being ineffective but the media appeal w big successes from groups like PETA make them popular. Effective strategy for black americans suffragettes used consumer spaces for their cause The importance of the BDS movement is political signaling
Consumer activism, Americans used purchasing power to support causes and punish perceived wrongdoers for centuries— abolitionists who refused to buy slave goods, 1930s boycott of silk from a fascist japan Consumer activism needs a goal, self presentation, and an adversary. Consumer activists target companies that support causes or practices activists consider unethical. Media-oriented boycotts are to get media attention: damaging a brand’s reputation can result in dips in the company’s stock prices; boycotts can gain attention and cause fast mobilization and find success there as it represents a major societal issue. Reputational damage is important. Israel has two approaches to BDS: world stage that it has no effect but warns Israelis that it is.
In 2017: 43 US senators proposed a bill backed by the Israeli lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee criminalizing support of BDS by up to 20 years in prison; 2019, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced a bill that would make it easier for states to impose their own anti-BDS laws. BDS is a legitimate political tool with some real potential/value. Regardless of support for its underlying movement, laws banning it are dangerous to our democracy and exercise of free speech.