Modeled on the international campaign of economic and political pressure that helped bring an end to South African apartheid nearly two decades ago, the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories has notched notable victories of late.
Achievements include the announcement in April that the flagship London outlet of Ahava, an Israeli cosmetics company that reportedly manufactures its products in an illegal West Bank settlement, is losing its lease in response to years of protest. In February, legendary folk singer Pete Seeger joined a roster of artists honoring the boycott of Israel, including Elvis Costello, Dustin Hoffman, Gil Scott-Heron, Johnny Depp and the Pixies.
Defenders of Israel dismiss these victories as minor irritants, but the government has reacted with alarm. In February the Knesset gave initial approval to a bill criminalizing advocacy of BDS. Israeli commentators, including the influential Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute, have called the BDS movement a “strategic threat” to the state of Israel. And the United States, Israel’s patron, has joined the chorus of critics. “When academics from Israel are boycotted — this is not objecting to a policy — this is anti-Semitism,” Hannah Rosenthal, the State Department’s envoy on combating anti-Semitism, said in an April 2 speech.
Rosenthal’s statement came right after the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem approved a long-delayed visa for Omar Barghouti, a leading figure in the BDS movement. Author of the new book, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, Barghouti was forced to postpone a tour of U.S. college campuses after his visa was held up for four months. In response an international campaign bombarded the consulate with phone calls and emails.
The attempt at scuttling Barghouti’s tour comes as no surprise in the context of increased U.S. and Israeli government scrutiny of the BDS movement’s growing popularity. Barghouti is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and award-winning journalist Max Blumenthal refers to Barghouti as “one of the BDS movement’s most effective strategists and promoters.”
I met up with Barghouti after his publisher, Haymarket Books, rescheduled his tour for April. Sitting in a crowded coffee shop in Manhattan, Barghouti talked about building on his experience as an anti-apartheid campaigner by focusing his attention on U.S. college campuses. “When I was in the anti-apartheid movement, we knew that we won when Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton divested. That was the beginning of the end for the apartheid system in South Africa.”
Barghouti describes his book as “about a movement that’s still growing very rapidly, in fact, and changing and transforming and gaining many more supporters. [The book is] taking stock of the main intellectual basis for the movement, the main achievements, the main challenges and where we go forward from here.”
The movement has three demands: an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and the dismantling of the separation barrier, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. To meet these goals, the BDS movement advocates boycotting Israeli products and institutions, divesting from companies profiting from the occupation and government sanctions on Israel.
Critics of BDS allege that the movement seeks to “delegitimize” Israel. Barghouti dismisses such charges: “It’s at best hypocritical, unfounded and totally baseless. In the anti-apartheid movement in the South African days — which I was a part of — no one claimed that opposing apartheid in South Africa was delegitimizing South Africans, Afrikaners, whites, English South Africans. It was seen as delegitimizing apartheid, as it was …. We’re delegitimizing occupation, apartheid and denial of rights. We’re not delegitimizing any people as such.”
It’s clear from the responses of powerful governments that the BDS movement is chipping away at key bastions of support for Israel in the West — exactly the movement’s goal, says Barghouti. “I think we’ve already won the battle for hearts and minds in many places in the West, especially in Western Europe. … Recent polls show Europeans view Israel, together with North Korea, Iran and Pakistan, as the most important threats to world peace. So, Israel is down there in that league, and the BDS movement has played a key role.”
But in the United States the stakes are even higher. Barghouti says, “It’s too early to mention a real, substantial shift in the [mainstream] discourse in the U.S. on the Palestinian-Israeli colonial conflict,” but at the grassroots level and on college campuses there is “a sea change in terms of the discourse.”
For example, New York University’s Students for Justice in Palestine just kicked off a divestment campaign on their campus, and students at the University of Arizona have recently launched a similar effort.
The BDS movement in the United States is up against powerful forces. At the urging of the Israeli government, organizations such as the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs have pledged to spend $6 million in the next three years to combat BDS initiatives. Nonetheless, left-wing Jewish groups such as the Zionist group Meretz USA have begun to embrace the logic of boycott. A prime example is Jewish Voice for Peace, which is currently leading a campaign to pressure the TIAA-CREF retirement fund to drop holdings from companies that profit from the occupation.
“Many Jewish groups who were previously sitting on the fence before the Israeli massacre in Gaza took sides in support of Palestinian rights after Gaza. Increasingly, they’re moving in the direction of BDS,” says Barghouti.
Some activists have argued that the BDS movement may now also benefit from the Arab uprisings, which have captivated and inspired many Americans, as seen by the union protests in Wisconsin.
“Most of the Arab uprisings give credit to the Palestinian intifada, the first intifada, as the main inspiration for their revolutions. In turn, we are very inspired by the peoples’ revolutions, especially in Tunisia and Egypt. Most importantly, there’s been a drastic, irreversible transformation in the balance of powers after the Egyptian revolution,” Barghouti says.
This article originally appeared in the latest issue of the Indypendent, a free New York City-based newspaper.
Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia in the U.S. at alexbkane.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.
Many Zionists must (one supposes) feel that Israel has a God-given “right” to settle all of Palestine (although, why only all of Palestine, and not the broader reach from Nile to Euphrates, I cannot imagine — but it’s their dream, not mine) — and to challenge that “right” is to challenge the legitimacy of the (or of this particular) Zionist dream. As so considered, perhaps BDS does, indeed, challenge Israel’s legitimacy.
But from the perspective of the rest of the world, BDS merely challenges the right of the State of Israel (one state among many) to break the international law (the law set up by all those states), and BDS, as so considered, merely upholds international law and delegitimizes lawlessness.
What’ll it be, the law of man (as interpreted by the UNSC and the ICJ) or the law of God (as interpreted by — whom, again? Mohammad? Al Azhar? Osama Bin Laden? Some fire-breathing rabbis)?
My prayer — that the time of the fundamentalist delusions, the towering pre-eminence of fundamentalist “us-against-the-world and you-against-the wall” interpreters of the word of God, be they Christian, Jewish, or Muslim is over. If the Arab Spring heralds that (among the Muslims among us), perhaps it can also herald the same among the rest of us.
“When academics from Israel are boycotted — this is not objecting to a policy — this is anti-Semitism,” Hannah Rosenthal, the State Department’s envoy on combating anti-Semitism
This office must be watched very closely. It could very easily turn into a government agency that ends up punishing citizens for engaging in activities protected by the first amendment. Let’s be sure to keep the spotlight on its activities. This is a trial balloon by Rosenthal, next will come some kind of sanctions against an institution or individual.
I have never supported a boycott of the state of Israel. I don’t believe it will accomplish anything positive in terms of resolving the crisis. I believe that the call for a boycott is predicated on an equation of this crisis with other situations, contemporary and historical, that is fundamentally false, the consequence of a failure of political understanding of a full and compassionate engagement with Jewish history and Jewish existence.
GF, if you are going to appropriate Tony Kushner’s words verbatim, then it is only right to him proper credit, instead of posting this as if it were your own words.
So let me ask you, do you agree with the rest of what Kushner said in his letter to CUNY, or is your unacknowledged quote the only part you agree with?
How about this?
“My questions and reservations regarding the founding of the state of Israel are connected to my conviction, drawn from my reading of American history, that democratic government must be free of ethnic or religious affiliation, and that the solution to the problems of oppressed minorities are to be found in pluralist democracy and in legal instruments like the 14th Amendment; these solutions are,like all solutions, imperfect, but they seem to me more rational, and have had a far better record of success in terms of minorities being protected from majoritarian tyranny, than have national or tribal solutions. ”
I take it you disagree with Kushner here?
in other words anything less than saying Israel and its people’s crimes are ok is bad in your mind
“I take it you disagree with Kushner here?”
Why? Seems like you’re making an “ass” out of “u” and “mption”.
My personal questions and reservations regarding the founding of the State of Israel are drawn, not from American history or the 14th amendment to your constitution but more from a personal conviction (even as a practicing orthodox Jew) that while all democratic countries establish laws that may have their roots in biblical morality, they have a higher duty to establish and maintain strict separation of church and state.
I have no particular argument with anything Kushner wrote in his eloquent letter to CUNY. I believe his treatment there was shoddy and unpleasant.
I’m a big fan of Tony Kushner. I saw both parts of Angels in America at the NT in London before they made it to Broadway. I think he’s a hero.
Now your turn, what do you think of Kushner’s comment about BDS which I mistakenly reproduced above without attribution?
My personal questions and reservations regarding the founding of the State of Israel are drawn, not from American history or the 14th amendment to your constitution but more from a personal conviction (even as a practicing orthodox Jew) that while all democratic countries establish laws that may have their roots in biblical morality, they have a higher duty to establish and maintain strict separation of church and state.
So, in other words, my take was right, despite your slur. Your qualms are about the “separation of church and state” and not about the ethnic-nature of Israel’s discrimination.
Personally, I disagree with some of what Kushner said, and agree with other things he said, but found the letter very well articulated and compelling.
As to BDS, I disagree with him as to its possible effectiveness, and think he too easily dismisses it. But I’m also aware that he is associated with those who likewise disagree with him on this and does not engage in bluster and defamation of those he disagrees with on BDS, and I respect him for that.
And, really?? You “mistakenly” forgot to attribute the words to Kushner? You didn’t even put quotes around them. Pretty big oversight. You do know that you have 10 minutes to edit your comments, right?
Mistaken, or you decided to try clencher’s proposed experiment to quote Kushner without attribution? At any rate, his take on BDS is muddle-headed.
BDS is not about Israelis (or even jews), it is about restoring fundamental human rights to Palestinians, in accordance with international laws and treaties. Specifically, the three unchanging goals of the BDS Movement:
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.
Kushner’s statement, which I presume GuiltyFeat agrees with, appears to be making the argument that because of “Jewish history and Jewish existence”, Israelis have some excuses for their treatment of Palestinians. I disagree.
“BDS is not about Israelis (or even jews), it is about restoring fundamental human rights to Palestinians, in accordance with international laws and treaties.”
No it’s not.
If BDS was about restoring fundamental human rights to Palestinians, then it would also be calling for boycott divestment and sanctions against Lebanon for their 60 years of Apartheid treatment of Palestinians as documented by Amnesty and HRW.
BDS is about punishing Israel. I could almost respect the movement if its supporters would at least admit that.
The terrible plight of the Palestinians will only be resolved when people like you care more about improving their lives than making things difficult for Israel.
BDS is a giant waste of energy. I want Palestinian sovereignty. I demand Palestinian right to self-determination. The way to achieve these goals is political, not exclusionist.
Heh. You either stole Kushner OR my own little experiment. Such a troublemaker!
How do you propose to achieve these goals GuiltyFeat?
There is a tremendous power imbalance in the relationship between Palestine and Israel/US. Because the US deploys the UN SC veto regularly to prevent Israel being held accountable for ignoring international laws, Israel feels free to act with impunity. Unless you’re blind, dumb and stupid (and I don’t believe you are any of those things) you can see that Israel has no desire or intention to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories, and no incentive to do so either.
BDS seeks to restore accountability for Israel’s behaviour, and give Israel an incentive to do something it shouldn’t even have to be asked to do: to follow the laws and treaties it agreed to respect when Israel voluntarily chose to join the United Nations.
I don’t disagree that BDS seeks to punish Israel via tried and true non-violent methods:
• we will not buy your products
• we will not invest in your companies
• we will not engage culturally, academically, athletically etc.
• we will seek punishment in line with international law
Compare and contrast how Israel treats Palestinians:
• military occupation
• ethnic cleansing
• administrative detention
• house demolitions
• torture
• targeted assassinations
• resource theft from occupied territories
• transfer of illegal, sometimes murderous settlers
• use of battlefield weapons on civilian population
• illegal blockade/collective punishment
Really GuiltyFeat, how much more does Israel have to do before you say “enough”?
You say you want Palestinian self-determination, how are you going to bring it into existence? How do you propose compelling Israel to end the occupation? I don’t think you demanding it on a forum is enough frankly. Let’s move away from platitudes (we all want peace) and get down to the nitty gritty.
When you can demonstrate a “political understanding of a full and compassionate engagement with Palestinian history and Palestinian existence”, then you can talk about the validity of BDS. Hiding behind some mystical claptrap which gives you rights over and above other human beings is no excuse.
What mystical claptrap am I hiding behind or are you lumping me in with “all Jews” because that suits your version of the world?
Oh you know the kind of thing: the mumbo jumbo that says that an American who is Jewish, and has the benefits of equality and freedom under the constitution, has the right to possess a Palestinian home and land – in a country foreign to him, to which he has never been and has no familial connection with, while the Palestinian has none of the benefits that the American takes for granted in his own country. Throw in some references to suffering and victimhood which the American has personally never experienced, whilst the Palestinian most certainly has, and you have the claptrap justifications routinely peddled as a ‘right’.
link to en.wikipedia.org
The page above has a list of countries that have a constitutional Right of Return law with a variety of immigration rules specific to one or more ethnicities.
Did you know for example that Spain will grant citizenship to Sephardic Jews who may be descended from those expelled in 1492?
China has special rules for what they term the “Overseas Chinese” which gives immigration priority to the ethnically Chinese even if their families have lived abroad for generations.
Is it your plan to decide the immigration policy for every country in the world or just Israel?
Ha ha, scouring the world for some disingenuous and false comparisons. You will agree then that the Palestinians also have the same right of return as you; indeed, a prior one, as they actually lived and owned property there. None of the countries you cite give right of return to groups who subscribe to a religion, but far more importantly none of them give them MORE rights to people who have never been there, than the people who actually have lived there for generations. None of them use immigrants to further colonialism or deprive indigenous people of their better and superior claims to the country. None of them give immigrants superior rights to the native populations, or pass laws granting them privileges which the natives can’t share. None of them build housing schemes where native people aren’t allowed to live. None of them have laws which discriminate in favour of one group of people, and deprive others of equality and liberty, those who have been there for centuries.
Perhaps you missed the UN Declaration of Human Rights which is in your link, which applies universally to all people, and doesn’t pick and choose according to a set of mystical beliefs.
As soon as the Palestinians have their own country they will be free to enact whatever immigration laws they choose.
Justice, the rest of your response mixes up Israeli citizens with Palestinians. I imagine you’re doing it on purpose. It’s the standard tactic here to blur the line between the political and the emotional. It’s also the same trick people like you accuse Zionists of. I always find it a bit cheap, whoever does it.
Let me know when you want to compare apples with apples.
the difference being all of those have as a requirment to show a connection of residence Israel doesn’t. you don’t have to have any sense of residency there.
Shorter GF reply:
You just decimated my argument so I’m not going to discuss this with you anymore.
As soon as the Palestinians have their own country they will be free to enact whatever immigration laws they choose.
Which will not relieve Israel of its requirement under international law to allow those Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel to return if they wish.
Under your accepted logic, since Jews have their own country in Israel, it would be perfectly proper for any other country to expel them. Or do Jews have special rights that Palestinians can never have? They get to have their own country( where they can discriminate against Palestinians), and still retain universal rights in other countries as well. Why don’t Palestinians have the same rights?
>> Did you know for example that Spain will grant citizenship to Sephardic Jews who may be descended from those expelled in 1492?
Isn’t it wonderful how inclusive Spain’s RoR is? Israel policy – in contrast to that of Spain and of most (all?) other countries – is exclusive and supremacist: Citizenship is automatic not for Israelis and not for expelled Palestinians…but for Jews only.
“including Elvis Costello, Dustin Hoffman, Gil Scott-Heron, Johnny Depp and the Pixies.”
To my knowledge, neither Dustin Hoffman nor Johnny Depp have ever made any kind of statement either in support of or against the BDS movement.
If anyone can provide a link to either of them saying otherwise, I’ll be happy to read it – to be clear, I’m looking for a statement or press release from either Dustin Hoffman or Johnny Depp declaring a position of any kind on a cultural boycott of Israel.
To be honest, when I find little lies like these in an article, it makes me wonder about the integrity of the entire piece.