The US initiated and brokered Palestinian-Israeli negotiations have failed to resolve this festering conflict with grave human rights implications for more than forty years. It has become crystal clear that US led peace negotiations will likely fail for the foreseeable future unless other political tools are employed to help spur a different political paradigm. US impotence was clearly displayed during President Obama's first years in office. In spite of his publicly articulated plan and declared intention to end the expansion of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the US has failed to deliver any substantive progress. Recent symbolic gestures to publicly recognize Palestinian sovereignty by a growing number of nations, particularly in Latin America, signal worldwide frustration with the US continued unproductive role as a peace broker.
The US Congress’ record of unconditional support for Israel’s pro-settlement government along with the aggressive campaigns by the powerful Israeli Lobby in the US have served to obstruct any meaningful US role in bringing about an end of the occupation and realizing justice for the Palestinian people. Faced with this reality, a growing number of concerned citizens in the US are turning to creative new approaches to bring an end to the Israeli occupation and Apartheid-Israeli style.
In July 2005, Palestinian civil society launched a “call to international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with international law." Further, "These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by: 1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194. Since the issuance of this historic call in 2005, the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has been taken up by countless of international peace groups, unions, churches, municipalities, countries and peace advocates.
With many successes of the global BDS movement, this campaign has finally crossed the Atlantic. It is being duplicated in the US by individuals and groups in DC, Maryland, California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and several other states, with active involvement of peace groups with diverse ethnic and religious composition. Believers and Non-Believers, Christians, Jews and Muslims are becoming active in this movement. Americans are adopting the BDS campaign in their local communities to build a broad national movement. They are taking this issue out of the hands of the few gatekeepers to engage mainstream Americans in their cities, town halls and houses of worship. They have come to recognize that BDS is a potent domestic means to change the current official US role of backing Israel regardless of the human consequences. Like the international BDS campaigns, US BDS relies on the guiding principals set by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, UN resolutions and the International Court of Justice decisions on the wall and the Israeli occupation. The Hague Court stipulates the following: Settlers cannot be transferred into an occupied territory: The indigenous population of an occupied territory cannot be deported from the occupied territory regardless of motive; If a population must be transferred for security or military reasons they must return after security measures have been set in place. In addition the International Court of Justice considers it a crime against humanity for any state whether in peace or war to engage in the collective persecution of "any identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, or religious" grounds.
Significantly, the US BDS initiative reasserts the relevance of the Charter of Nuremberg which declared forced deportation and uprooting of civilian populations to be both a war crime and a crime against humanity. This is an opinion adopted by the world community to protect future communities from displacement and to avert a recurrence of the German Jewish experience during the Hitler regime when Germany oversaw the indiscriminate displacement of Jews, with millions perishing in concentration camps. The US BDS campaign relies on the examples of the successful South African Anti-Apartheid Boycott model as well as the earlier Jewish United Boycott Committee Campaign when Jews and human rights activists developed an organized boycott campaigns of German goods that was implemented throughout Europe and the US between 1933-1945 to protest German war crimes and injustices perpetuated against Jews. The 1936 Jewish led boycott of the German Olympics was an aggressive popular campaign that helped educate the American public on the dire conditions and plight of Jews in Germany.
Building and strengthening the US BDS movement has become a major objective for many US peace and justice activists. The Palestinian BDS call was adopted by the UN Civil Conference and is currently being considered for adoption in the UN General Council in 2011. The likely endorsement of BDS by the General Assembly will express the consensus of world public opinion thereby creating a basis for BDS to be implemented by member states, as well as being recognized as a legitimate tool for corporate ethical accountability on this and other human rights issues.
The current Israeli government 's arrogant refusal to consider suspending settlement building - never mind end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land - has so far only generated pathetic rhetorical protests from the US governement with no consequences. Massive US military and financial aid to Israel continues. Observing this travesty has been a major factor in encouraging ordinary Americans to implement the Palestinian BDS call. The US BDS movement has a real potential to change the political paradigm that has exacted a heavy price on Palestinian and Israelis people. Without justice for the Palestinian people Israelis will continue to live in a highly militarized state without a prospect for real peace and security. And realizing a just peace in the Middle East would have huge positive consequences for all of humanity, by contributing to global demilitarization, thereby freeing up resources needed to confront the multifold challenges posed by the increasing threat of catastrophic climate change and unmet human needs here in the US and especially in the global South.
David Schwartzman is an environmental scientists on the faculty of Howard University and a member of the International Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN).
Mai Abdul Rahman is a Palestinian American living in Washington D.C. She has founded the American Palestinian Women's Association and is a Doctorial student at Howard University's School of Education.
BDS is not as you describe, “a creative movement”. There certainly are creative people that participate, and I’m sure that creativity enters into the choices of dissent.
But, creative dissent would be actions that affect a change for the better on the part of the Israeli electorate. If anything, the BDS movement contributes to a feeling of isolation among the Israeli electorate.
With the prospect of devolution of Israeli relationships with Egypt, Turkey, PA, politically conscious Israelis (even those of profound goodwill) note the experience of being surrounded. BDS adds to that feeling.
Its impact on the hearts and minds, absent a feasible proposed path for reconciliation, is negative if anything.
If there is any effort that would contribute to the re-election of likud, it is the success of the BDS movement.
Israel/Palestine is NOT South Africa. Even the stated demands of the BDS movement are a moving target, wording changing with every iteration.
Vague, and in forms that are irreconcilable.
The things that can influence Israeli popular opinion and elections (that result in positive changes in policy and practices) include: precise BDS that defines boycott only of settlement products (and not cultural and academic exchange), support for civilist political parties in Israel, support for human rights organizations within Israel, support for journalists, support for integrated projects (ecological, cultural, trade).
One reason that BDS is understood as counter-productive, is that the proponents in the public forums that it is seen, do not advocate clear conditions, but instead describe such a gamut of complaints, and vaguely and subjectively stated, that the BDS campaign ends up understood as unconditional condemnation functionally.
“proponents in the public forums that it is seen, do not advocate clear conditions,”
Clear conditions:
1. Repeal all racist laws
2. Enfranchise all residents and refugees
3. Elections, one state.
4. Vote on new constitution, with equal rights for all
5. Reparations, “truth and reconciliation.”
The problem is that Palestinians would not tolerate equal rights for the Zionist devils. Or sharing a government peacefully with them. You might as well boycott Ireland until it joins the UK.
Or… um… boycott the Moon until it joins Fredonia! or something.
Zionist Jews had a turn and they were greedy and undemocratic. I’m willing to give the Palestinians a fair chance at being just and responsible.
Zionism is a politic, not a people.
And you might be surprised.
I always think that one of the best historical analogies with Israel/Palestine is that of Sparta/Messenian helots. Xenophon says that the helots would have been glad to eat the Spartans raw and I would think that this is the feeling I would have were I subject to daily humiliation by exulting conquerors who say they work for God. The analogy breaks down because the Messenians were eventually liberated by foreign intervention, not in a way that permitted much revenge. But in any event there is usually very strong reason for people who are liberated to swallow their indignation and work with the former oppressors, who still have valuable expertise, financial networks, international status and so on. The Palestinians will be in this position when liberation comes.
That said, it is rather grotesque to say ‘I have wronged them and they are indignant and therefore, because they would take revenge, I have a right to wrong them some more.’
The problem is that Palestinians would not tolerate equal rights for the Zionist devils.
solid logic, like.. duh. zionists ethnically cleanse and palestinians are intolerant!
lol
Gilad Atzmon: Yasmeen el Khoudary – The Circles in the Sky Over Gaza
RW,
Since Israel excludes the vast majority of the indigenous Palestinian people from citizenship and life in their native land, why do you complain if Israelis feel isolated? Israel, and to a large extent its electorate (lets count you as one of them), are the ones isolating themselves, holding themselves apart, keeping the native people excluded, as you yourself urge Israelis to continue to exclude those they’ve forced from their land, and urge us to support this Israel-imposed isolation of Israelis from the native people.
I am, as always, hoping you will acquire enlightenment.
Its not their feelings that are a primary concern.
How Israelis vote, DOES affect Palestinians’ lives.
What’s to stop Israel comming up with their own?
So what? Likud came t power without BDS and as the Palestine Papers revealed, Likud and Kadima are on the same page anyway.
What evidence do you have for that Witty?
What is imprecise about the goals of BDS?
BDS is not concerned with support for civilist political parties in Israel. What goes on in Israel is no concern of the BDS movement.
Rubbish. They are very preise and clear about their demands. You’re just doing what you always do Witty and pretending that the terms are vague, when in all likelyhood, you never bothered to even read what they are.
Likud/Israel Beitanhu and Kadima are VERY different.
Most in likud continue its former ideology of all of the land from river to sea being Israel, and Palestinians as invisible. They err on the side of opportunism.
Kadima used to be characterized by erring on the side of caution, willing with caveats.
Now that those caveats are nakedly mostly gone (thanks to the Palestine Papers), a fair and viable two-state proposal is a near certainty under the next Kadima government.
Unless you believe that a single-state is near (which seems to be a ludicrous assertion from my perspective), then a fair and viable two-state approach is a much much more progressive goal to pursue.
The same way that the Democrats and the Republicans are. They differ slightly on domestic policy but are the same on foreing policy.
Olmert had the same ideology. He declared it in a speech before Congress to a standing ovation.
What’s ludicrous is your denial and insistence that the two-state approach is alive, especialyl after the release of the Palestine Papers. Just come clean Witty and admit it.
I think the Palestine Papers make the two-state approach more alive, in that they remove any argument that the PA is not sincerely seeking peace.
Kadima clearly now fully understands that the annexation approach is an apartheid one, impossible to remain Jewish AND democratic. Even most in likud acknowledge that now.
Likud asserts that the current status can be continued and indefinitely, that it is a desirable status. Kadima regards the current status as unsustainable.
An electoral shift in Israel is the game.
You and Jeffrey Goldberg, while the rest of the world has accepted it dead.
Kadima has always known that know that the annexation approach is an apartheid one. Barak said so more than a year ago.
So does Kadima. The the was true in 2008 when they rejected the offer by the PA. The PA have no credibility left, nor the authority to follow through on that offer, so Israel will have to accept a less desirable offer, which we both know is never going to happen.
No, an electoral shift in Israel is more of the same, but feel free to keep deluding yourself.
at the rafah crossing
the moment the revolutionary spirit of the people of the nile
meets the revolutionary spirit of the palestinians
freedom will be in the air
to bring this newly emerged freedom down to earth
carefully overlay with bds
Witty: “If anything, the BDS movement contributes to a feeling of isolation among the Israeli electorate.”
Uh, isn’t that the point?
But then the Israelis would lash out by killing Palestinian children, and then Witty would have to work himself ragged being apologist for that and blaming it on Hamas! Again!
It sure worked with South Africa during apartheid days. They had a sense of being a unique, European-oriented society, stuck at the far end of the African continent. It was lonely down there.
As boycotts began to suspend international academic exchanges, sports tournaments, even affiliation with the Dutch Reformed Church, the administrators of apartheid realized they were totally on their own in an unsympathetic world. And they folded.
Lavish US and European support is what allows Israel to maintain its violent ‘villa in a jungle’ bubble. By eroding this support, BDS will demonstrate to Israel that it is an outlier and outlaw, whose aggressive policies of occupation and settlement must end.
Richard,
The only way the BDS crowd will be convinced that BDS does not work, and in fact is detrimental to their cause, is by seeing it fail. So let them try. After all this isn’t new. Israel does not play sports in Asia because of BDS. Do the BDS supporters really believe that Europe will ever BDS the sports teams of the only Jewish state?
In the unlikely case that BDS begins to be slightly successful, the main people suffering will be the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. The Jews in Israel will BDS them back. The Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are so reliant on Israel’s economy that this will be a disaster for them.
Also, there will be a strong anti-BDS movement against people doing the BDS. Israel supporters are just as organized. Anyone part of the BDS movement will pay a huge price. Let’s see how long a supermarket chain can survive with people picketing them everyday until they sell Israeli products. Does any American business want to get into a fight with the supporters of Israel in the US?
The supporters of BDS just cannot see two steps ahead, just like the Palestinians that supported violence and believed that Israelis will just pack their packs and fold under threat of violence. BDS will beget BDS, that is only natural. And as usual the detractors of Israel underestimate Israel’s ability to counter their moves.
Only negotiations will bring a solution.
Yes, because BDS failed spectacularly in the US when it came to change our stance in South Africa.
Keep telling yourself that.
Please don’t consider BDS’ing them back. Support Israeli Arab businesses. Let them know that their contributions are valued.
Take the high road.
Blockading the hell out of Palesitnians and even hijacking international aid shipments? THAT’S Witty-approved “kosher.”
Paved with white phosphorous Witty, or cluster bombs?
>> Let them know that their contributions are valued.
Valued as long as they remain subservient to the Chosen People; otherwise, ethnic cleansing – which was once “necessary” and which is only “currently not necessary” – could easily become “necessary” once more.
But no worries: While some of the collective carry out the dirty work, the others – the ones who “sympathize” but don’t “identify” – can just “hold their noses” and convince themselves that it’s all moral and just.
Only negotiations will bring a solution.
They have already brought a solution: one (apartheid) state between the river and the sea.
You can call Israel an “apartheid” state as much as you want but that does not make it so. The West Bank is under occupation, it is not part of Israel. And Gaza is not even under occupation anymore.
Try BDS Shmuel and see if you like the results. BDS will just beget BDS, not a solution to your liking even more so with the huge gas finds. All you will succeed in achieving is legitimizing economic warfare, and we both know who the biggest losers from tit for tat BDS will be.
All you will succeed in achieving is legitimizing economic warfare, and we both know who the biggest losers from tit for tat BDS will be.
There you go confusing your tenses again. Israel (and before it the Zionist movement) has been waging one form of economic warfare or another against the Palestinians for over a century. The closure of Gaza is economic warfare.
Your distinction between the WB and the rest of Israel is also straight out of a time warp. It is a single entity, conveniently – but theoretically – divided into different areas in order to fulfil the ideal of “maximum territory and minimum Arabs” (enfranchised Arabs that is). It’s been 43 facts-on-the-ground-filled years. It’s time to “call the child by its name”: a single apartheid state from the river to the sea.
You can call deny Israel is an “apartheid” state as much as you want but that does not make it so.
The West Bank is under occupation, it is not part of Israel, and Israel refuses to fulfill it’s responsibility under international laws regarding occupation. Instead, it violates the Geneva Conventions.
it can;t get any worse for them, but it can get a lot worse for you guys eee, which is the whole point. The boycott of South Africa surely didn’t make life wonderful black South Africans during the boycott either.
BDS is nothing new. It is the continuation of the Arab boycotts of Israel of the past. It was a failure then and is a failure now.
And it certainly is in no position to promise peace.
The movement is dedicated to destroying Israel, and always has been, with silly demands like those calling on Israel to “promote” the “right of return” of Palestinians to Israel in keeping with non-binding UN resolution 194 and in basic contravention of the spirit of UNSC 242, which is the basis of negotiation.
I see the big reset button was pushed on how idiotically wrong and deliberated prevaricating you are about UN resolutions and what language is actually in them.
“BDS is nothing new. It is the continuation of the Arab boycotts of Israel of the past. ”
No, it’s not. BDS is a **grassroots** campaign promoted by individuals all over the world.
You spend 60 years homeless and stateless, then come back and tell us how “silly” it is for you to demand justice.
Any state that would be “destroyed” by justice doesn’t deserve to exist.
Hophmi, you stand up to the facts with sang froid and I admire that, the way I admire the vesus fly-trap and poison-arrow frog. But you need to convince us, me at any rate, that the people you support are not some sort of spiffy mafiosi. And you can’t.
You’re real ugly hophmi.
This is just pathetic propaganda. BDS is a grassroots movement started by the Palestinian people, ignoramus.
“This is just pathetic propaganda. BDS is a grassroots movement started by the Palestinian people, ignoramus.”
Uh-huh. Yeah, so’s the tea party. But movements have roots. BDS is old wine in a new bottle. The roots of this movement lie in the racist Arab boycotts of the past.
Um, no. Palestinians wanting to change their situation – one of a combination of human rights violations, discrimination, statelessness, etc. does not compare to the Tea Party movement.
‘racist Arab boycotts’ – you’re the racist. A sick one at that. Narcissistic and self-deluded to boot!
Palestinian civil society has EVERY RIGHT and reason to boycott a racist society and state that continues to deny them freedom and dignity.
excellent article! excellent argument. i especially liked this:
This is an opinion adopted by the world community to protect future communities from displacement and to avert a recurrence of the German Jewish experience during the Hitler regime when Germany oversaw the indiscriminate displacement of Jews, with millions perishing in concentration camps. The US BDS campaign relies on the examples of the successful South African Anti-Apartheid Boycott model as well as the earlier Jewish United Boycott Committee Campaign when Jews and human rights activists developed an organized boycott campaigns of German goods that was implemented throughout Europe and the US between 1933-1945 to protest German war crimes and injustices perpetuated against Jews. The 1936 Jewish led boycott of the German Olympics was an aggressive popular campaign that helped educate the American public on the dire conditions and plight of Jews in Germany.
reality rocks!
I am happy that our article has generated such a vigorous debate. One further point. I think the BDS movement should not take an official position with respect to a one or two state solution, consistent with the call of Palestinian civil society and the stance of the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. Of course a BDS campaign should welcome supporters of both solutions, or even those supporting the “no state” solution favored by anarchists. One correction in my affiliation: IJAN is the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.