Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is a Palestinian-led[5][6][7] movement promoting boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what it describes as Israel's obligations under international law,[8] defined as withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties".[8] The movement is organized and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee.[9]

This article is about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement specifically. It is not to be confused with Boycotts of Israel.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
AbbreviationBDS
Formation9 July 2005 (2005-07-09)
FounderOmar Barghouti,[1] Ramy Shaat[2]
TypeNon-profit organization
PurposeBoycotts, political activism
Key people
Mahmoud Nawajaa[3]
Parent organization
Palestinian BDS National Committee[4]
Websitebdsmovement.net
A BDS demonstration outside the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, April 2017

BDS is modeled after the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.[10] Its proponents compare the situation in Israel to apartheid.[11][12] Protests and conferences in support of the movement have been held in several countries. Its mascot, which features on its logotype, is Handala, a symbol of Palestinian identity and defiance.

Critics say BDS is antisemitic, questions the legitimacy of Israel, and is similar to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.[13][14][15][16][17]

Background
See also: Boycotts of Israel and Arab League boycott of Israel
Area C (blue), the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control, in 2011

During the Second Intifada, Palestinians began developing new nonviolent methods focused on garnering international support for pressure on Israel.[18][19] This led to international calls for boycotts of Israeli institutions, including academic and cultural ones.

In April 2002, during Operation Defensive Shield, a British-led initiative called for a moratorium on academic collaboration with Israeli institutions.[20] It quickly racked up over 700 signatures, among them Colin Blakemore and Richard Dawkins, who said they could no longer "in good conscience continue to cooperate with official Israeli institutions, including universities."[21] Other similar initiatives followed in the summer. In August, Palestinian organizations in the occupied territories called for a comprehensive boycott of Israel. In October 2003, a group of Palestinian intellectuals called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.[22] In 2004, an attempt to coordinate the boycotts gained momentum after the start of the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier.[18]

According to some critics of the BDS movement, its roots can be traced to the Arab League's boycott of Zionist goods from Mandatory Palestine that began in 1945, three years before Israel's founding.[23] Israel's economic relations with Arab countries have thawed somewhat since then, and the League's boycott has been only sporadically enforced. The BDS movement should be understood in this context, critics claim.[24][25] According to historian Alex Joffe, BDS is merely the spearhead of a larger anti-Western juggernaut in which the dialectic between Communism and Islam remains unresolved, and has antecedents in The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the General Union of Palestinian Students and the Muslim Brotherhood.[26]

Andrew Pessin and Doron Ben-Atar contend that BDS has its origins in the 2001 Durban UN Conference against Racism. They believe that BDS should be placed in a historical context of other boycotts of Israel.[24]

Philosophy and goals

The BDS movement's premise is that Israel is an apartheid state as defined by two international treaties, the 1973 The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It claims that while there are differences between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa, such as the lack of explicit racial segregation laws in Israel, the systems are fundamentally similar.[27]

One of the main differences between South African and Israeli apartheid, BDS argues, is that in the former a white minority dominated a black minority, but in Israel a Jewish majority discriminates against a Palestinian minority in Israel and also keeps Palestinians under military occupation. It further contends that apartheid in South Africa depended on black labor while Israeli apartheid is grounded in efforts to expel Palestinians from "Greater Israel".[27]

BDS sees the Israeli legal definition of itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" as contradictory.[27] It claims that Israel upholds a facade of democracy but that Israel is not and cannot be a democracy because it is, in the words of Omar Barghouti, "a settler-colonial state."[28]

BDS demands that Israel end its "three forms of injustices that infringe international law and Palestinian rights" by:[29][8]

These demands are non-negotiable to BDS. Barghouti, citing South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, has written: "I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights."[11] BDS therefore repudiates the 1993 Oslo accords and similar attempts at compromising with Israel. Barghouti has also written:[11]

"Ending the largely discernible aspects of Israeli occupation while maintaining effective control over most of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967 "in return" for Palestinians' accepting Israel's annexation of the largest colonial blocks ... has become the basic formula for the so-called peaceful settlement endorsed by the world's hegemonic powers and acquiesced to by an unelected, unrepresentative, unprincipled, and visionless Palestinian 'leadership.' The entire spectrum of Zionist parties in Israel and their supporters in the West, with few exceptions, ostensibly accept this unjust and illegal formula as the "only offer" on the table for the Palestinians—or else the menacing Israeli bludgeon."

BDS believes that negotiations with Israel should focus on "how Palestinian rights can be restored" and that they can only take place after Israel has recognized these rights. It frames the Israel-Palestinian conflict as between colonizer and colonized, between oppressor and oppressed, and rejects the notion that both parties are equally responsible for the conflict.[30] For those reasons, BDS opposes normalization activities such as dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, which it argues is counterproductive.[31]

BDS claims that "all forms of international intervention and peace-making until now have failed" and therefore calls upon the international community to impose punitive measures, such as broad boycotts and divestment initiatives, against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.[29]

BDS uses the framework of "freedom, justice, and equality," arguing that Palestinians are entitled to those rights like everyone else. It is therefore an antiracist movement and rejects all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.[32][33] More generally, BDS frames itself as part of a global social movement that challenges neoliberal Western hegemony and struggles against racism, sexism, poverty and similar causes. Its struggle for Palestinian rights should be seen as a small but critical part of that struggle, BDS argues.[34]

Founding and organization

Official BDS literature claims that the movement was founded on 9 July 2005, on the first anniversary of the advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in which the West Bank barrier was declared a violation of international law. Over 170 Palestinian non-governmental organizations representing every aspect of Palestinian civil society adopted the BDS Call, calling for international boycotts of Israel.[35][11]

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) was established at the first Palestinian BDS conference in Ramallah in November 2007.[35] It consists of a large number of Palestinian civil society organizations and has managed the BDS movement since 2008. Mahmoud Nawajaa serves as the BNC's General Coordinator.[3] Riya Hassan serves as the Europe Campaigns Officer of the BNC.[36] Thousands of organizations and groups are part of the global BDS movement, some of which are the BNC's main partners.[37]

A precursor to BDS is the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which was founded in April 2004 in Ramallah with Barghouti as a founding committee member.[38][39][40] PACBI led the campaign for the academic and cultural boycotts of Israel. It has since been integrated into the larger BDS movement.

The Israeli Boycott from Within group, which often uses creative performances to propagate for a boycott, is one BDS-affiliated organization. Another Israeli group is Who Profits, a research group that supplies BDS with information about companies complicit in the Israeli occupation.[41] On campuses in the US, Canada and New Zealand, the student organization Students for Justice in Palestine is propagating for BDS. According to the American coordinating body, National Students for Justice in Palestine, it had about 200 chapters in the US as of 2018.[42] The left-wing activist organization Jewish Voice for Peace advocates on behalf of BDS among American Jewry.[43]

In addition to these, political parties, trade unions and other NGOs have endorsed BDS' call for boycott, some of which are described in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions#Support.

Methods
BDS protest in Melbourne, Australia against Israel's 2007–present Gaza blockade and 2010 attack on a humanitarian flotilla, June 2010

BDS organizes campaigns for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Boycotts are facilitated by urging the public to avoid purchasing goods made by Israeli companies, divestment by urging banks, pension funds, international companies, etc. to stop doing business in Israel, and sanctions by pressuring governments to end military trade and free-trade agreements with Israel and to suspend Israel's membership in international forums. Global targets for boycotts, divestment and sanctions are selected centrally by the BDS movement, but local groups are free to choose targets that suit them.[44][45]

At the grassroots level, BDS uses social media, petitions, articles, on-campus events and organizes public demonstrations to apply pressure on individuals and corporations to cut ties with Israeli institutions.[46]

BDS's opponents argue that, at official university levels, it inundates organizations and departments with various and recurring anti-Israel resolutions, often without notice or time for open debate. They say that BDS supporters bring outsiders to influence opinion or to vote on university resolutions even when this is unauthorized.[47] Whether a resolution passes is not as important as keeping the debate alive at official university levels. The goal is to influence future policymakers to find fault with Israel.[48]

Campaigns and activities

In addition to the campaigns listed in this section, a number of local campaigns have been created by BDS-affiliated groups and endorsed by the BDS movement. They include Code Pink's Stolen Beauty campaign launched in 2009 against Israeli cosmetics manufaturer Ahava,[49] an Australian campaign against Max Brenner, whose parent company, the Strauss Group, sent care packages to Israeli soldiers.[50], and a campaign by the group Vermonters for Just Peace in Palestine against ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry over its sales of ice-cream in Israeli settlements.[51]

Israel Apartheid Week (2005-)
Main article: Israeli Apartheid Week

Groups affiliated with BDS holds worldwide events known as Israel Apartheid Week in February or March each year.[52] According to BDS, the events' aim is to raise awareness of Israel's apartheid regime.[53] According BDS's opponents, the events are intended to link Israel to negatively charged words such as "apartheid" and "racism."[24] Since Israel Apartheid Week began in Toronto in 2005, it has since spread to at least 55 cities around the world.[54][55][56][57][58][59]

Derail Veolia and Alstom (2008-)

Since November 2008, BDS has campaigned against the multinational French conglomerates Veolia and Alstom for their involvement in the Jerusalem Light Rail because it runs through the Israeli-occupied parts of East Jerusalem.[60] According to BDS, the boycott had cost Veolia an estimated $20 billion as of 2015.[61] In 2015 Veolia sold off its final investment in Israel, a 5% state in CityPass owned by its subsidiary Transdev. BDS attributed the sell-off to its campaign, but Richard Dujardin, a member of Transdev's executive committee, said: "I will not say that it is pleasant to be chased by people saying we are not good guys all the time but really it was a business decision."[62]

Stop G4S (2012-)

Since 2012 BDS has campaigned against G4S, the world's biggest security company, to get it to divest from Israel.[63] In 2014 the Gates Foundation sold its $170 million state in G4S, a move BDS activists attributed to the boycott campaign.[64] In February 2016, Crepes & Waffles terminated its security transport contracts with G4S.[65]

Boycott HP (2016-)

BDS runs a boycott campaign against the multinational information technology company Hewlett-Packard's two successors, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which it claims are complicit in "Israel's occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid regime".[66] According to the campaign, HP supplies Israel with a biometric ID card system used to restrict Palestinians' freedom of movement and provides servers for the Israel Prison Service.[67]

In April 2019, Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging, the Netherlands' largest trade union, dropped HP in its offer to its members. According to a spokesperson for the boycott HP campaign, the union used to offer a 15% discount on HP products and this would no longer be the case.[68] In June 2019, Unite, the UK's second-largest trade union, joined the boycott against HP.[69]

Orange (2016-)

In January 2016, it was reported that French telecom operator Orange would end its licensing agreement with Israel's second-largest mobile company, Partner Communications. According to BDS, the deal was the result of its six-year campaign by unions and activists in France, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.[70] While BDS hailed the move as a significant victory, Orange said it was ending its relationship with Partner for purely commercial reasons.[71]

AXA Divest (2016-)

The French multinational insurance agent AXA has since 2016 been the target of a campaign urging it to divest from Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems and five major Israeli banks. AXA has, according to BDS, a responsible investment policy that forbids it from investing in, among other things, manufacturers of cluster bombs, and Elbit Systems makes cluster bombs.[72] According to a report by corporate responsibility watchdog SumOfUs, AXA's involvement in Israel's occupation could expose it to criminal prosecution.[73]

Red Card Israel (2016-)

Red Card Israel is BDS's campaign to get Israel expelled from FIFA due to alleged violations against Palestinian football and because several Israeli teams from the Israeli-occupied West Bank are allowed to play in its national league, the Israel Football Association.[74][75] In 2018, it scored a victory as Argentina's national football team canceled an upcoming friendly game in Jerusalem.[76]

Puma (2019-)

In April 2019, BDS launched a global campaign to boycott sportswear manufacturer Puma because of its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA). The IFA includes football clubs based in Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law.[77][78] In October 2019, activists placed unauthorized posters in the London underground urging people to boycott Puma. Transport for London said that it was flyposting and that it would immediately take action against the posters.[79] In February 2020, Malaysia's largest university, Universiti Teknologi MARA, announced that it would end its sponsorship deal with Puma due to its involvement in Israel.[80][81]

Boycott Eurovision 2019 (2018-2019)

BDS ran a campaign to get artists to boycott Eurovision Song Contest 2019, which was held in Tel Aviv in Israel. BDS accused Israel of using Eurovision to whitewash and distract attention from alleged war crimes against Palestinians. It also accused Israel of pinkwashing, due to Eurovision's popularity among LGBTQ fans.[82][83] Although none of the acts scheduled to appear pulled out, activists considered the campaign successful due to the controversy it generated.[84]

American pop star Madonna was one of the artists BDS urged to cancel her appearance at Eurovision. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd also tried to get her to cancel, saying that it "normalizes the occupation, the apartheid, the ethnic cleansing, the incarceration of children, the slaughter of unarmed protesters."[85] Madonna refused, saying that she would neither "stop playing music to suit someone's political agenda" nor "stop speaking out against violations of human rights wherever in the world they may be."[86]

In September 2018, 140 artists (including six Israelis) signed an open letter in support of a boycott of Eurovision.[87][88] In response to the calls for boycott, over 100 celebrities, including English actor Stephen Fry, signed a statement against boycotting Eurovision in Israel: "We believe the cultural boycott movement is an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis who are working to advance peace through compromise, exchange, and mutual recognition".[89]

Hatari, the band representing Iceland in the contest, held up Palestinian banners in front of the cameras at the event's finals, defying the EBU's rules against political gestures. BDS was not mollified.[90]

Academic boycott
See also: Academic boycott of Israel

Universities have been primary targets of the BDS movement, according to English professor Cary Nelson, "because faculty and students can become passionate about justice, sometimes without adequate knowledge about the facts and consequences. ... [U]niversities also offer the potential for small numbers of BDS activists to leverage institutional status and reputation for a more significant cultural and political impact."[91] BDS argues that there is a close connection between Israeli academic institutions and the Israeli state, including its military, and that an academic boycott is warranted. Modern weapon systems and military doctrines used by the Israeli military are developed at Israeli universities that also use a system of economic merit and scholarship to students who serve in the army.[92][93][92] Like the BDS-led cultural boycott, the academic boycott targets Israeli institutions and not individual academics.[94] The events and activities BDS encourages academics to avoid include academic events convened or co-sponsored by Israel, research and development activities that involve institutional cooperation agreements with Israeli universities, projects that receive funding from Israel or its lobby groups, addresses and talks by officials from Israeli academic institutions at international venues, study-abroad programmes in Israel for international students, and publishing in Israeli academic journals or serving on such journals' review boards.[95]

Reception

Thousands of scholars,[96] including luminaries such as the late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, and a large number of academic and student associations have endorsed the academic boycott against Israel. Some of the US endorsers include: the American Studies Association, the American Anthropological Association, the Association for Asian American Studies, the Association for Humanist Sociology, the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the Middle East Studies Association, the National Women's Studies Association along with dozens of other student associations.[97][98][99][100][101] While a boycott of Israel has overwhelming support among Palestinians,[102] a handful of Palestinian scholars have come out against an academic boycott. Examples include Sari Nusseibeh, former president of the Palestinian Al-Quds University, who acknowledges that his view is the minority viewpoint among his colleagues. Matthew Kalman has speculated in The New York Times that dissent is more widespread among academics but that they are afraid to speak out.[103][104]

In 2007, the American Jewish Committee ran an ad in The Times titled "Boycott Israeli universities? Boycott ours, too!" It was initially signed by 300 university presidents and denounced the academic boycott against Israel. It argued that an academic boycott would be "utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment."[105] Phil Gasper, writing for the International Socialist Review, argued that the ad grossly misrepresented the argument proponents of the boycott make and that its characterization of it as "political disagreements of the moment" was trivializing.[106]

In December 2013, the American Studies Association (ASA) joined the boycott of all Israeli academic institutions.[107][108] Israel is the only nation the ASA has boycotted in the 52 years since its founding. Judea Pearl lambasted the ASA's endorsement of the boycott and wrote that it had a "non-academic character."[109]

As of March 2018, resolutions to endorse BDS had not had any effect on college investment decisions, according to Nelson. The effect they do have, he says, is the promotion of anti-Israel (and sometimes antisemitic) sentiment within student bodies, faculty, and academic departments.[110]

Controversies

University of Michigan has been the site of controversies relating to BDS. A student group called Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) had since 2002 tried to get a resolution passed through the student government to ask the university to divest from companies doing business with Israel. The resolution was brought up for the eleventh time in November 2017 and finally passed with 23 ayes and 17 nays and five abstentions.[111] Reportedly, the hearing on the resolution was the longest in student government history.[112] In December, the Board of Regents at the university rejected the resolution, stating that "we strongly oppose any action involving the boycott, divestment or sanction of Israel."[113]

In 2018, after previously agreeing to write a letter of recommendation for a student, associate professor John Cheney-Lippold declined to write it after discovering the student was planning to study in Israel. After critics called a letter to the student antisemitic, Cheney-Lippold said he supported BDS for human rights reasons and rejected antisemitism. Guidelines from PACBI say faculty "should not accept to write recommendations for students hoping to pursue studies in Israel".[114][115] 58 civil rights, religious, and education advocacy organizations called on the university to sanction Cheney-Lippold.[116] University officials ended the controversy by disciplining him[117] and issuing a public statement that read in part, "Withholding letters of recommendation based on personal views does not meet our university’s expectations for supporting the academic aspirations of our students. Conduct that violates this expectation and harms students will not be tolerated and will be addressed with serious consequences. Such actions interfere with our students' opportunities, violate their academic freedom and betray our university's educational mission."[118]

Cultural boycott

BDS believes that Israel uses culture as a form of propaganda to whitewash and justify its regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people. Therefore, it argues, Israel should be subjected to a cultural boycott like the one against apartheid-era South Africa. According to BDS, most, but not all, Israeli cultural institutions have "cast their lot with the hegemonic Zionist establishment in Israel" and are therefore implicated in Israel's crimes and should be boycotted by cultural organizations and workers worldwide.[119]

BDS distinguishes between individuals and institutions. Unlike the cultural boycott against South Africa, BDS's cultural boycott does not target individuals.[120] BDS supports the right to freedom of expression and rejects boycotts based on identity or opinion.[121] Thus, Israeli cultural products are not per se subject to boycott. But if a person is representing Israel, aids its efforts to "rebrand" itself, or is commissioned by an official Israeli body, then their activities are subject to the institutional boycott BDS is calling for.[119]

BDS also argues for a boycott of "normalization projects", which it defines as "[c]ultural activities, projects, events and products involving Palestinians and/or other Arabs on one side and Israelis on the other (whether bi- or multilateral) that are based on the false premise of symmetry/parity between the oppressors and the oppressed or that assume that both colonizers and colonized are equally responsible for the 'conflict' are intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible forms of normalization that ought to be boycotted."[119] The only Israeli-Palestinian projects that BDS favors are those in which the Israeli party recognizes the three rights enumerated in the "BDS Call" and that also emphasize resistance to oppression over coexistence.[119] BDS strongly discourages "fig-leafing" by international culture workers—attempts to "compensate" for participating in Israeli events using "balancing gestures" that promote Palestinian rights. BDS argues that fig-leafing contributes to the false perception of symmetry between the colonial oppressor and the colonized.[119]

Reception

The cultural boycott has been supported by thousands of artists around the world, such as Roger Waters and American author Alice Walker. In 2015, more than 1,000 British artists pledged their support for the boycott, drawing parallels to the one against South African apartheid: "Israel’s wars are fought on the cultural front too. Its army targets Palestinian cultural institutions for attack, and prevents the free movement of cultural workers. Its own theatre companies perform to settler audiences on the West Bank—and those same companies tour the globe as cultural diplomats, in support of 'Brand Israel'. During South African apartheid, musicians announced they weren’t going to 'play Sun City'. Now we are saying, in Tel Aviv, Netanya, Ashkelon or Ariel, we won’t play music, accept awards, attend exhibitions, festivals or conferences, run masterclasses or workshops, until Israel respects international law and ends its colonial oppression of the Palestinians."[122][123]

Many cultural workers have also criticized the boycott. In 2015, author J. K. Rowling tweeted:

The Palestinian community has suffered untold injustice and brutality. I want to see the Israeli government held to account for that injustice and brutality. Boycotting Israel on every possible front has its allure… What sits uncomfortably with me is that severing contact with Israel’s cultural and academic community means refusing to engage with some of the Israelis who are most pro-Palestinian, and most critical of Israel’s government.[124]

In 2017, singer Thom Yorke of the English band Radiohead defied pressure not to perform in Israel, saying, "Playing in a country isn't the same as endorsing the government. Music, art and academia is about crossing borders, not building them, about open minds, not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression."[125]

Novelist Ian McEwan, upon being awarded the Jerusalem Prize, was urged by activists to turn it down, but said, "If I only went to countries that I approve of, I probably would never get out of bed. [...] It's not great if everyone stops talking."[126]

Controversies

The organizers of the weeklong Rototom Sunsplash music festival held in Spain in 2015 cancelled the scheduled appearance of Jewish American rapper Matisyahu after he refused to sign a statement supporting a Palestinian state. Matisyahu said that it was "appalling and offensive" that he was singled out as the "one publicly Jewish-American artist".[127] After criticism from Spain's daily paper El País[128] and the Spanish government as well as Jewish organisations,[129] the organisers apologised to Matisyahu and reinvited him to perform, saying they "made a mistake, due to the boycott and the campaign of pressure, coercion and threats employed by the BDS País Valencià."[130]

BDS País Valencià denied that Matisyahu was targeted because he is Jewish, writing that they tried to get him canceled because of his views on Israel. In particular, they noted that he had played at a fundraiser for the IDF and at a conference for AIPAC and had defended Israel's boarding of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters.[131] Mark LeVine commented that it would hardly have been surprising if a festival had canceled a Palestinian-American rapper who professed support for Hamas.[132]

In July 2019, after the Open Source Festival in Düsseldorf disinvited the American rapper Talib Kweli for refusing to denounce the BDS movement, 103 artists, including Peter Gabriel, Naomi Klein and Boots Riley, signed an open letter condemning Germany's attempts to impose restrictions on artists who support Palestinian rights.[133]

Impact

Economic

The economic impact of BDS's and other boycott initiatives on Israel is disputed, with proponents generally claiming that the impact has been major and opponents that it has been minor.

In June 2015, a RAND Corporation study concluded that a successful BDS campaign against Israel, if maintained for ten years, could cost the Israeli economy $47 billion. The figure was based on a model that examined previous international boycotts; the report noted that making an assessment of BDS's economic effects is difficult because evidence of the effectiveness of sanctions is mixed.[134][135]

Pessin and Ben-Atar have argued that since Israel's gross domestic product nearly doubled between 2006 and 2015 and foreign investment in Israel tripled during the same period, BDS has not had a significant impact on Israel's economy.[136]

A 2015 Israeli Knesset report concluded that BDS had no impact on Israel's export-dependent economy and that exports to Europe were growing.[137]

Adam Reuter of the Israeli Reuter Meydan Investment House has argued that boycotts of consumer goods are ineffective because 95% of Israel's exports are business-to-business.[138]

Proponents of BDS point to a number of public and private organizations that have divested from Israel. In 2014, it was reported that Luxembourg's state pension fund, FDC, had excluded eight major Israeli firms, including Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, AFI Group and the American firm Motorola Solutions as part of its socially responsible investments programme.[139][140] Norway's YMCA-YWCA joined the boycott in 2014, announcing that it would support "[a] broad economic boycott of goods and services from Israel and Israeli settlements".[141][142]

Non-economic

According to Haaretz columnist and Brown University student Jared Samilow, BDS's most significant impact is the social cost it puts upon Jews living outside Israel.[143] A 2016 poll found that 58% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza think BDS has had a positive impact, and 14% believe it to be negative.[144]

Reviewing four lists of achievements published by the BDS movement between July 2017 and December 2018, analyst Amin Prager concluded that, with some exceptions, impact was limited but that BDS's greatest potential effect arises from its long-term aim to influence discourse about Israel's legitimacy and international standing.[145]

Anti-BDS laws and resolutions
Main article: Anti-BDS laws

In response to the BDS movement, several countries and US states have enacted laws designed to hinder people and organizations from boycotting Israel. Proponents of such laws claim that they are necessary because BDS is a form of antisemitism.[146] Opponents claim that Israel and its supporters are engaging in lawfare by lobbying for anti-BDS laws and that such laws infringe upon the right to free speech.[147]

Responses
Main article: Reactions to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

Responses by Palestinian authorities

Mahmud Abbas does not support a general boycott against Israel and has said that the Palestinian people don't either. Barghouti has disputed Abbas's claim, saying that there indeed is a "Palestinian national consensus" in favor of the boycott. Abbas does, however, support a boycott of goods produced in Israeli settlements, and the Palestinain Authority has at times used boycotts to gain leverage on Israel. For example, in 2015, it imposed a boycott on five major Israeli food manufacturers to retaliate against Israel withholding Palestinian tax funds.[148][149]

Responses by Israeli authorities
Further information: Law for Prevention of Damage to State of Israel through Boycott and Amendment No. 28 to the Entry Into Israel Law

The Israeli government's response to BDS has been harsh. It views it as a long-term strategic threat and has implemented measures to combat it.

In March 2016, Israeli Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Yisrael Katz argued that Israel should employ "targeted civil eliminations" against BDS leaders. The expression puns on the Hebrew word for targeted assassinations.[150] Amnesty International in response issued a statement expressing its concern about the safety and liberty of Palestinian human rights defender Barghouti and other BDS activists.[151]

In June 2016, Haaretz reported that Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs was going to establish a "dirty tricks" unit to "establish, hire or tempt nonprofit organizations or groups not associated with Israel, in order to disseminate" negative information about BDS supporters.[152] The news came on the heels of a report that Israel's efforts to fight BDS had been ineffectual, in part because the responsibility had been transferred to the Strategic Affairs Ministry from the Foreign Ministry. "Despite receiving expanded authority in 2013 to run the government's campaign against the delegitimization and boycott efforts against Israel, the Strategic Affairs Ministry did not make full use of its budgmemet and had no significant achievements in this area," Haaretz quotes the report as saying. "In 2015, it still did not carry out its work plans."[153]

On 21 March 2017, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan announced a plan to set up a database of Israeli citizens who support BDS. The database would be compiled using open sources such as Facebook and social media posts. Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit objected, saying that only the Israeli secret police, Shin Bet, has the authority to monitor citizens in that way. Arab Israeli Knesset member Ayman Odeh slammed the idea, saying the government was afraid of a nonviolent struggle against occupation.[154]

In 2017, Israel enacted Amendment No. 28 to the Entry Into Israel Law, a law that prohibits foreigners who supports a boycott of Israel from entering the country itself or the Israeli settlements. In 2018, the Strategic Affairs Ministry published a list of 20 BDS-friendly organizations whose officials would be denied entry.[155][156][157] In 2019, Israel caused some controversy by denying entry to two US congresspersons, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, known for their support of BDS. As of 2020, Israel has denied entry to 16 people based on the law,[158] including seven French politicians and EU parliamentarians.[159]

In a response to Ireland's progressing of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018,[160] the Israeli Prime Minister issued a press release stating that it "strongly condemns the Irish legislative initiative, the entire goal of which is to support the BDS movement and harm the State of Israel" and instructed that "the Irish Ambassador to Israel be summoned to the Foreign Ministry on this matter."[161] According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Irish ambassador said that this is not a BDS initiative and that the Irish government opposes BDS.[162]

On 31 July 2020, Israeli soldiers arrested Mahmoud Nawajaa, General Coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), in his home near Ramallah.[3][163]

Responses by other governments
United States
See also: Israel Anti-Boycott Act

Tennessee became the first US state to pass a resolution condemning BDS in April 2015[164] and since then, several bills and resolutions have been enacted in federal and state legislatures with the intent to combat BDS.[165][166][167][168][169][170][171] As of June 2020, 29 states has anti-BDS laws, either by legislation or executive order.[172] The laws prohibit state offices from doing business with companies that boycott Israel.[173] The states include Alabama, California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Kentucky.[174]

In several states, these laws have been challenged on First Amendment grounds for violating citizens' freedom of speech.[175] Supporters of anti-BDS statutes argue that boycotts are economic activity, rather than speech, and that laws prohibiting government contracts with groups that boycott Israel are similar to other anti-discrimination laws that have been upheld as constitutional. Opponents, such as the ACLU, contend that the laws are not analogous to anti-discrimination legislation because they only target boycotts of Israel.[176] The Texas, Kansas, and Arizona legislatures amended their states' anti-BDS laws in response to criticism and lawsuits.[177][178]

In July 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution denouncing the BDS movement. One of the resolution's sponsors, Brad Schneider, explained that he was not concerned about the movement's economic impact but opposed what he said was "an effort to delegitimize Israel, of course." A separate resolution introduced by representative Ilhan Omar, which did not explicitly mention the BDS movement but was widely seen as a response to the House anti-BDS bill, affirmed the "right to participate in boycotts in pursuit of civil and human rights at home and abroad". The bill was co-sponsored by representative John Lewis, despite his opposition to BDS,[179] and supported by the ACLU and J Street.[180]

Denmark

On 17 May 2017, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Danish minister of foreign affairs Anders Samuelsen to stop funding Palestinian organizations supporting the BDS movement.[181] Two days later, the Danish ministry of foreign affairs began an investigation of the 24 organizations in Israel and Palestine that Denmark supports. On 24 May Netanyahu called Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen to complain about Denmark's funding activities in the area.[182] In December 2017, the Danish ministry of foreign affairs announced that Denmark would fund fewer organizations and that the conditions for obtaining Danish funds needed to be "stricter and clearer". Michael Aastrup Jensen, spokesman of foreign affairs for Venstre, said, "Israel has objected emphatically. And it is a problem that Israel sees it as a problem, so now we clear up the situation and change our support".[183]

On 7 February 2019, Ninna Hedeager Olsen (EL), mayor of technical and environmental affairs in Copenhagen, gave an award to three BDS members known as the "Humboldt 3", including Ronnie Barkan.[184][185]

South Africa

In 2012, South African African National Congress party gave its support to the BDS movement stating it was "unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel."[186] In January 2018, it notified Israel that blacklisting individuals who support BDS has only served to strengthen the ANC's support for the Palestinian people.[187]

Support
Further information: List of people who support the BDS movement

Artists, actors, and writers

People who support the BDS movement include Danny Glover[188] and Naomi Klein.[189]

In 2014, Roger Waters wrote, "After more than two decades of negotiations, the vulnerable Palestinian population still lives under occupation, while more land is taken, more illegal settlements built, and more Palestinians are imprisoned, injured or killed struggling for the right to live in dignity and peace, to raise their families, to till their land, to aspire to each and every human goal, just like the rest of us. The Palestinians’ prolonged statelessness has made them among the most vulnerable of all peoples".[190]

Political

The African National Congress endorsed BDS in 2012. The party declared itself "unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel".[191] Following Israel's ground invasion of Gaza in 2014, the Green Party of England and Wales's conference supported "active participation in the BDS movement".[192] Scotland's Green Party endorsed a boycott of Israel in October 2015.[193] Members of the Green Party of Canada voted to endorse BDS in August 2016, despite the objections of the party's leader and sole MP Elizabeth May.[194] In June 2018 the Socialist International issued a Declaration expressing support for "Boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli occupation, all the occupation institutions, and the illegal Israeli settlements, including the total embargo on all forms of military trade and cooperation with Israel as long as it continues its policies of occupation and Apartheid against the Palestinian people".[195][196]

Some political parties have supported BDS, such as the NSW Greens in Australia[197] and the Québec solidaire in Canada.[198]

According to Newsweek and The Jerusalem Post, three German Nazi parties, The III. Path, The Right and the National Democratic Party, support BDS.[199][200] According to Ha'Aretz, German Nazi parties and BDS find common ground in the effort to dilute "the widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Since the IHRA definition cites the demonization of Israel as an example of contemporary anti-Semitism, BDS supporters ... oppose this definition just as bitterly as neo-Nazis."[201]

Trade unions

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) supports the campaign for BDS against Israel, fully endorsing it in July 2011.[202] During the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, COSATU vowed to "intensify" their support for the campaign, picketing Woolworths for stocking Israeli goods.[203]

In April 2014, the UK's National Union of Teachers, the largest teacher's union in the EU, passed a resolution backing boycotts against Israel.[204] In July of that year, the UK's Unite the Union voted to join BDS.[205]

In December, 2014 UAW Local 2865, a local chapter of the United Auto Workers union, representing over 14,000 workers at the University of California adopted a resolution in support of BDS with 65 percent of the votes in favor.[206] It became the first major US labor union to endorse BDS.[207]

A year after the vote, the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) informed UAW Local 2865 that it had nullified the vote. The opposition to the BDS resolution came from a small pro-Israel group known as the Informed Grads,[208] represented by the global law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. IEB claimed that the endorsement of the boycott would interfere with the "flow of commerce to and from earmarked companies." The BDS Caucus of UAW 2865 repudiated the IEB's argument, claiming that the IEB cared more about the "flow of commerce" than solidarity with Palestinian labor unions.[207] The IEB further alleged that the resolution of anti-Semitism and the BDS Caucus defended itself, calling the accusations "the same baseless accusations of anti-Semitism frequently attributed to anyone who is critical of Israel."[207]

In April 2015, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, Quebec, Canada, representing 325,000 in nearly 2,000 unions, voted to join the campaign for BDS and support a military embargo against Israel.[209]

On 11 September 2019, the British Trades Union Congress passed a motion titled "Palestine: supporting rights to self-determination", called for the prioritization of "Palestinians' rights to justice and equality, including by applying these principles based on international law to all UK trade with Israel", and declared its opposition to "any proposed solution for Palestinians, including Trump’s 'deal', not based on international law recognising their collective rights to self-determination and to return to their homes".[210]

Public figures

The South African cleric Desmond Tutu has endorsed the BDS Movement,[211] saying, "In South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the apartheid regime."[212][213] In an essay for Haaretz, Tutu wrote, "Those who contribute to Israel’s temporary isolation are saying that Israelis and Palestinians are equally entitled to dignity and peace."[214]

Opposition
Further information: List of people who oppose the BDS movement

Artists, actors, and writers

People who oppose the BDS movement include Howard Stern[215] and Ed Asner.[216]

Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt argued in an interview with The New Yorker in 2019 that the intent of BDS is to destroy the State of Israel, because it calls for a full right of return for the Palestinian refugees. She futher argued that if boycott of Israel was the main goal, then "would all have to give up our iPhones" because a lot of technology is created in Israel. She thought the objective of BDS was to make anything coming out of Israel seem toxic, but did not think that "any kid who supports B.D.S. is ipso facto an anti-Semite".[217]

Political

Political parties that oppose BDS include the Liberal Party of Australia[218] and both major political parties in the United States.[219] A common reason given for opposing BDS is that it attacks Israel's legitimacy and fosters antisemitism.[220][221] Berlin's Social Democratic Party (SPD) accused BDS of antisemitism in May 2017 and some observers, such as Reinhard Schramm, the head of the SPD in Ilmenau and the head of the Jewish community of the state of Thuringia, say that BDS shows the SPD's commitment to protecting the Jewish state is doubtful.[222]

In 2017 all 50 US state governors and the mayor of Washington, D.C., signed on to "Governors United Against BDS", an initiative sponsored by the American Jewish Committee that condemns BDS as "antithetical to our values and the values of our respective states" and emphasizes "our support for Israel as a vital U.S. ally, important economic partner and champion of freedom."[223]

Public figures

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin wrote in an op-ed in Ynetnews in 2016: "Boycotts, violence, and incitement only deepen divides, and don't bring us any closer to a solution. When BDS takes over, criticism turns into camouflage for the delegitimization of the existence of the State of Israel,"[224] He added, "some parts of BDS even include factions which are connected to enemies of the State of Israel, and who work in order to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state. Some of them are even worse, and hide their anti-Semitism by calling their actions 'criticism of Israeli policy.'"[224]

Norman Finkelstein, a harsh critic of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, has also expressed an ambivalent attitude towards BDS. He has supported economic boycott of Israel[225] and said that BDS has the "right tactics", but that it needs to be "explicit on its goal" and that "the goal has to include recognition of Israel, or it won't reach the public". He is hostile towards the BDS movement in its current form, labeling it a "hypocritical, dishonest cult" led by "dishonest gurus" who want to "selectively enforce the law" and try to cleverly pose as human rights activists, whereas their real goal is the destruction of Israel.[226][227]

Former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar said, "I think BDS is an unfair, discriminatory movement based on a moral double standard that is, in the final analysis, anti-Semitic [...] BDS is in fact trying to harm every Israeli citizen and not only the government. In reality what BDS wants is to make life in Israel intolerable so the Jewish nation will not be able to have a normal existence in its state. BDS does not only want to change the government's policy, it wants to empty the country of Jews."[228]

Former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair, David Cameron and Theresa May have condemned calls for a boycott of Israel.[229][230][231]

Other

The Arab Council for Regional Integration, a group of 32 Arab intellectuals, repudiated BDS at a London conference in November 2019.[232] It said that BDS has cost the Arab nations billions in trade, "undercut Palestinian efforts to build institutions for a future state, and torn at the Arab social fabric, as rival ethnic, religious and national leaders increasingly apply tactics that were first tested against Israel."[233] At the council, Kuwaiti information minister Sami Abdul-Latif Al-Nisf spoke about the opportunity costs to Palestinians, saying that outsize focus on BDS draws money and attention away from investment in Palestinian professionals such as doctors and engineers.[234]

Criticism
Criticism of the BDS

According to Yehuda Ben Meir and Owen Alterman, by depicting Israel as a racist, fascist, totalitarian, and apartheid state, BDS engages in defamation and demonization of Israel. They claim that boycotting Israeli targets, regardless of their position or connection to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is incitement.[235] In a 2009 opinion column for The Jerusalem Post, Gil Troy argued that the BDS movement does not target Israel's policies, but rather targets Israel's legitimacy.[236] The Israeli Reut Institute has argued that the BDS movement singles out Israel, and applies double standards that delegitimize Israel.[237]

In 2007, The Economist called the boycott "flimsy" and ineffective, noted that "blaming Israel alone for the impasse in the occupied territories will continue to strike many outsiders as unfair," and pointed out that the Palestinian leadership did not support the boycott.[238] By early 2014, however, they noted that the campaign, "[o]nce derided as the scheming of crackpots", was "turning mainstream" in the eyes of many Israelis.[239] Alan Dershowitz and the Israeli Action Network pointed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's support of a boycott specific to Israeli businesses that operate in Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories over a general boycott of Israel as evidence that BDS is not in the Palestinians' favor.[240][241] Dershowitz added, "The BDS movement is immoral because it would hurt the wrong people", such as Palestinians employees of the firms affected by BDS or patients awaiting medicine made by those firms.[242] Similarly, Cary Nelson wrote, "BDS actually offers nothing to the Palestinian people, whom it claims to champion. Perhaps that is the single most cruel and deceptive feature of the BDS movement. Its message of hate is a route to war, not peace."[110]

Dershowitz also argued that the BDS movement disincentivizes the Palestinian leadership from negotiating with Israel at present.[243] The Anti-Defamation League similarly encouraged critics of Israel to promote constructive dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian actors rather than destructive and one-sided delegitimization tactics.[244]

Hurts Palestinians economically

BDS's opponents argue that it is good for Palestinians in the West Bank that Israeli companies operate there. They say that they offer employment with higher wages than Palestinian employers and that the employees do not feel exploited. It is therefore counterproductive to boycott companies operating in the settlements, they argue.[39]

BDS supporters say that many Palestinians workers in settlements earn less than the Israeli minimum wage, that their salaries are often withheld, their social rights denied, and that they are often exposed to danger in the workplace. To work in settlements, Palestinians must obtain work permits from the Israeli Civil Administration. The permits can be annulled at any time—for example, if the workers try to unionize or engage in any kind of political activity.[245] BDS supporters further argue that, regardless of the economic costs, the boycott against Israel enjoys overwhelming support among Palestinians.[102]

Connections to terrorism

Some of BDS's opponents have claimed that it has ties to militant organizations.

Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former terrorism finance analyst for the U.S. Treasury Department, has argued that there are links between BDS and American supporters of Hamas. In April 2016 Schanzer testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade that "in the case of three organizations that were designated, shut down, or held civilly liable for providing material support to the terrorist organization Hamas, a significant contingent of their former leadership appears to have pivoted to leadership positions within the American BDS campaign."[246][247]

A report published in 2018 by the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry, titled The Money Trail: The millions given by EU institutions to NGOs with ties to terror and boycotts against Israel accused the EU of having giving 5 million euros to organizations that "promote anti-Israel delegitimization and boycotts". The report was sharply rebuked by EU officials such as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini who said the accusations in the report were "vague and unsubstantiated" and that it conflated "terrorism with the boycott issue."[248] Another report by the Ministry in February 2019, Terrorists in Suits: The Ties Between NGOs promoting BDS and Terrorist Organizations claimed that BDS was a "complementary track to terrorism" and that Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) members had infiltrated organizations affiliated with the movement to advance their goal: "the elimination of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people".[249] As examples of such infiltration the report listed Rasmea Odeh, a former member of PFLP who was involved in a bombing in Jerusalem in 1969 and who had participated in meetings organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine and Leila Khaled, also a former PFLP member who carried out a plane hijacking in 1969 and an attempted plane hijacking in 1970 and who is a well-known figure in the boycott movement.[249] In June, the Israeli Ministry announced that its economic campaign against BDS had shut down 30 accounts linked to it over the last two years - ten in the United States and 20 in Europe.[250]

BDS dismissed the report: "This wildly fabricated and recycled propaganda report from the far-right Israeli government cannot be dignified with any response."[251] Both the Ministry's reports were cited by an Amnesty report from 2019 as examples of efforts by Israel to delegitimize Israeli and Palestinian human rights defenders and organizations.[252]

Allegations of antisemitism
See also: New antisemitism and 3D Test of Antisemitism

The Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Israeli officials describe BDS as antisemitic.[16][253][254][255]

Several critics such as Charles Krauthammer and retired Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz have argued that BDS employs a "double standard" and singles out Israel. They claim that is a form of discrimination.[256][257]

According to Ira M. Sheskin of the University of Miami and Ethan Felson of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, BDS efforts have, at times, targeted Jewish people who have little or nothing to do with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. They argue that BDS causes Jews to be blamed for the supposed sins of other Jews.[258]

Other arguments include:

  • Some accuse BDS supporters of antisemitic statements or antisemitic activity.[259] For example, some BDS supporters compare Israel's contemporary[260] treatment of Arabs to Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews during the Holocaust and deny Israel's right to self-determination.[16][261] The Australian attributes antisemitic activity to BDS supporters, including the publication of material on the Internet that denies the Holocaust and promotes attacks against "Jews and Jew lovers".[262]
  • Some see similarity, or exact resemblance,[263][264] between BDS and historical acts of discrimination against Jewish minorities, such as the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.[16][265]
  • Some argue that BDS is a significant step in the creeping normality of antisemitism.[266] The resulting atmosphere threatens Jewish students on American college campuses.[267]
  • Some argue that academic boycotts often target Israelis who oppose the Israeli presence in Palestinian territories and support Arab–Israeli peace initiatives.[268]
  • Research by the AMCHA Initiative found "a strong correlation between BDS and anti-Semitism toward Jewish students on [college] campuses across the country, including attempts to exclude Jewish and pro-Israel [people] from campus activities."[269]

Several replies have been made to the allegations above:

  • Jay Michaelson wrote an editorial in The Jewish Daily Forward critical of Foxman's position. His editorial noted that several BDS leaders are Jewish and said that the ADL, "with every pro-censorship stance it takes [...] loses more and more credibility and cheapens the meaning of the term 'anti-Semitism' itself".[270]
  • Judith Butler asserts that BDS's demands are fully compatible with, and derived from, international standards for human rights. From this Butler draws the conclusion that equating BDS with antisemitism amounts to the assertion that those standards are antisemitic.[271] Butler argues that the allegation of anti-Semitism springs necessarily from a false "generalizations about all Jews", presuming that "they all share the same political commitments" while ignoring a view prevalent among some Jews who were "exceedingly critical" of the state.[271] Barghouti developed a similar line of reasoning, saying that those who criticize BDS as an attack on Jewish people are equating the latter with the state of Israel.[272]
  • A joint letter, signed in 2018 by 41 left-leaning Jewish social justice organizations from around the world, affirmed that BDS's tools and tactics "should not be defined as antisemitic". The letter stated, "At times like this, it is more important than ever to distinguish between the hostility to or prejudice against Jews on the one hand and legitimate critiques of Israeli policies and system of injustice on the other."[273][274][275]
  • Daniel Blatman, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at the Hebrew University, has challenged the suggestion of similarity between BDS and boycotts imposed on Jews.[16][265][276] A liberal Zionist and BDS opponent, Blatman argues that "the boycott imposed on Jews by antisemitism and the boycott of Israel today have nothing in common... The antisemitic boycott movement was directed against the authorities who had not acted against those who were not considered to belong to the nation, and even deemed the nation's enemy. The Israeli equivalent of the boycott movement can be found in right-wing circles, who have called for a boycott of Arab produce".
  • A September 2019 UN report addressing religious intolerance including anti-semitism[277] notes that there are "claims that the objectives, activities and effects of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement are fundamentally antisemitic" but says that "these allegations are rejected by the BDS movement". Israel's UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, falsely said it was the "determination" of the report that BDS "encourages anti-Semitism".[278]

See also

References
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  3. "#FreeMahmoud: Israeli occupation forces arrest BDS coordinator Mahmoud Nawajaa during night raid". BDS Movement. 30 July 2020.
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  5. Trew, Bel (15 May 2019). "Tourists come face-to-face with Eurovision's darker side: 'No pride in apartheid'". The Independent. Retrieved 16 May 2019. And so the event has also been hounded by activists spearheaded by the Palestinian-led campaign Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS).
  6. Holmes, Oliver (7 May 2019). "Israel says it will not allow in activists planning to 'disturb' Eurovision". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 May 2019. The event has become a target for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign
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  11. Omar Barghouti (2011). BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions : the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Haymarket Books. pp. 4–6. ISBN 978-1-60846-114-1.
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  13. Bennhold, Katrin. "German Parliament Deems B.D.S. Movement Anti-Semitic." The New York Times. 17 May 2019. 5 August 2020. "The nonbinding vote said the campaign to boycott Israeli products ... recalled 'the most terrible chapter in German history' and revived memories of the Nazi motto 'Don’t buy from Jews.'"
  14. Nasr, Joseph and Riham Alkousaa. "Germany designates BDS Israel boycott movement as anti-Semitic." Reuters. 17 May 2019. 5 August 2020. "The motion said a BDS campaign calling for Israeli products to be labeled with 'Don’t Buy' stickers was reminiscent of the Nazi-era boycott of Jewish businesses."
  15. Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance, Chapter Two: Anti-Semitism and support for Jewish rights: an analysis of socialist attitudes to the Jews, P. Mendes, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, page 89
  16. "Report" (PDF). Wiesenthal.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  17. "A blueprint to combat the assault on Israel's legitimacy in Europe". The Jerusalem Post. 4 June 2014. At its core, the assault on Israel's legitimacy is a denial of the Jewish people's right to self-determination.
  18. Daniel Coleman; Erin Goheen Glanville; Wafaa Hasan; Agnes Kramer-Hamstra (26 April 2012). Countering Displacements: The Creativity and Resilience of Indigenous and Refugee-ed Peoples. University of Alberta. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-88864-592-0. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
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  21. Suzanne Goldberg (8 July 2002). "Israeli boycott divides academics". The Guardian.
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  23. The Israeli anti-boycott law: Should artists be worried? Cardozo AELJ
  24. Pessin, Andrew and Doron S. Ben-Atar. Introduction. Anti-Zionism on Campus, Pessin and Ben-Atar, Indiana UP, 2018, pp. 1-40.
  25. Greendorfer, Marc (7 January 2015). "The BDS Movement: That Which We Call a Foreign Boycott, By Any Other Name, Is Still Illegal": 19. SSRN 2531130. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  26. Joffe, Alex. "Palestinians and Internationalization: Means and Ends." Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. 26 November 2017. 28 November 2017.
  27. Bill V. Mullen; Ashley Dawson (2 November 2015). Against Apartheid: The Case for Boycotting Israeli Universities. Haymarket Books. pp. 2–9. ISBN 978-1-60846-527-9.
  28. Omar Barghouti (15 March 2011). Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Haymarket Books. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-60846-115-8. The facade of democracy, not democracy itself, is what is truly collapsing in Israel, as democracy has never existed in any true form - nor could have existed - in a settler-colonial state like Israel.
  29. "Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS". BDS Movement, 9 July 2005. Archived on 31 January 2016
  30. "FAQs: BDS Movement". The BDS movement therefore opposes activities that create the false impression of symmetry between the colonizer and the colonized, that portray Israel as a ‘normal’ state like any other, or that hold Palestinians, the oppressed, and Israel, the oppressor, as both equally responsible for 'the conflict'. ... Negotiations will at some point be needed to discuss the details of how Palestinian rights can be restored. These negotiations can only take place when Palestinian rights are recognised.
  31. PACBI (27 December 2011). "What is normalization?". +972 Magazine.
  32. Omar Barghouti (2011). BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions : the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Haymarket Books. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-60846-114-1.
  33. Sunaina Maira (2018). Boycott!: The Academy and Justice for Palestine. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-29489-9.
  34. Omar Barghouti (2011). BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions : the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Haymarket Books. pp. 58–59. ISBN 978-1-60846-114-1. BDS will unavoidably contribute to the global social movement’s challenge to neoliberal Western hegemony and the tyrannical rule of multi/transnational corporations. In that sense, the Palestinian boycott against Israel and its partners in crime becomes asmall but critical part in an international struggle to counter injustice, racism, poverty, environmental devastation, and gender oppression, among other social and economic ills.
  35. "Introducing the BDS Movement". BDS Movement. Accessed April 2016
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  48. Pearl, Judea. "BDS and Zionophobic Racism." Anti-Zionism on Campus, Pessin and Ben-Atar, Indiana UP, 2018, pp. 224-235.
  49. The Case for Sanctions Against Israel. Verso Books. 2 May 2012. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-84467-803-7.
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  51. Čedomir Nestorović (28 May 2016). Islamic Marketing: Understanding the Socio-Economic, Cultural, and Politico-Legal Environment. Springer. p. 203. ISBN 978-3-319-32754-9.
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  61. "BDS Marks Another Victory As Veolia Sells Off All Israeli Operations".
  62. "Boycott Movement Claims Victory as Veolia Ends All Investment in Israel". 1 September 2015.
  63. "G4S: Securing Israeli Apartheid".
  64. "G4S to Sell Off Operations in Israel as BDS Claims Victory".
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  66. "Boycott HP: BDS Movement".
  67. "BDS activists to launch HP consumer boycott on Black Friday".
  68. "Victory for Boycott HP Campaign: Netherlands Trade Union FNV Drops HP as Partner for its Member Offers".
  69. "Unite joins boycott of Hewlett Packard over company's complicity in Palestinian rights violations." Morning Star.
  70. "Orange to End Partnership With Israeli Company as BDS Claims Another Scalp".
  71. "Campaigners hail "inspiring" BDS victory as Orange quits Israel".
  72. "AXA Divest: BDS Movement". BDS Movement.
  73. "AXA: Financing War Crimes - The Global insurer's involvement in the illegal Israeli Occupation" (PDF).
  74. "Red Card Israel".
  75. "Fifa urged to give red card to Israeli settlement clubs".
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