After the Nazis came to power on January 30, 1933, as a response to German discriminatory policies and human rights abuses of German Jews, an international boycott campaign was carried out in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, initiated by Jewish organizations and human rights activists. In March 1933 the first US Jewish boycott Campaign, organized by the American Jewish War Veterans and the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights, was initiated.
On March 27, 1933, more than 70 activities, actions and rallies to protest Germany were launched across the US, carried out by American Jews and human rights advocates. These actions occurred in several cities including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York and Philadelphia. It is important to note that Jewish persecution was an active German policy soon after 1933, but the “final solution”, the physical genocide of European Jews came later, with death camps in the 1940s, a practice only terminated with the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
Since 1967 Palestinians have commemorated Land Day on March 30th, to honor the memory of six young Israeli Palestinians killed by Israeli military forces for protesting the confiscation of their land. This year Palestinians and internationals commemorated Palestinian Land Day by implementing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activities, following the 2005 Call of Palestinian Civil Society,
The US Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany in 1933 protested the German government’s discriminatory policies, measures and laws that segregated Jews from non- Jews. These include decrees that defined a non-Aryan as “anyone descended from non-Aryan”, which lead to Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws where German Jews lost their right to be German citizens in their own country, and laws banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews.
Palestinian Israelis today suffer similar abusive laws including an institutional Israeli ban on mixed marriages, laws that sanction discrimination and marginalization of Palestinian Israeli residents and laws that revoke citizenship rights, which until recently were assumed protected rights that cannot be stripped.
In addition Israel’s discriminatory policies in the Occupied Territories has many features that resemble South Africa’s Apartheid laws. Israel military laws protect and enforce Jewish only settlements; separate roads; military checkpoints and the Israeli Separation Wall that separate families, farmers from their land, worshipers from their churches and mosques, children from their schools; as well as discriminatory marriage and legal laws. Israel’s military occupation allows Israeli firms and settlers free use of Palestinian land and access to Palestinian water resources. Meanwhile the absence of any environmental protection from run off pollutants from Israeli settlements and their business enterprises is a sanctioned practice that impacts the quality of life of neighboring Palestinian villages.
The initiation of both boycotts -the Jewish in 1933 and the Palestinian in 2005- were rooted in moral conviction. Seventy-eight years ago, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the American Jewish Congress was determined to implement the US Jewish Boycott Campaign, simply stating, “We must speak out.” Similarly BDS calls on people of conscience to use non-violent means to advance a just peace among Palestinians and Israelis. Both understood the economic futility of their endeavors but were steadfast, trusting their principled moral and ethical actions would help inform the world of the plight of the oppressed.
Rabbi Wise and the many members of the Jewish boycott campaigns displayed admirable moral and ethical conviction by protesting Germany’s abusive and discriminatory laws, likewise the global movement in solidarity with the African National Congress to end South African Apartheid, and so are today’s global BDS organizers who represent many faiths and beliefs. They are determined to end Israel’s discriminatory and abusive policies of its Palestinian citizens, and free both Israelis and Palestinians of a senseless occupation that strangles both peoples and locks them in an endless cycle of pain and suffering.
The driving moral force behind the 1933 Jewish Boycott and the 2005 BDS movement is the recognition of people of conscience who in the words of Martin Luther King come to realize that “one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.” Certain their actions and protests are essential to bring about change- aware that what once is considered impossible become inevitable.
