The Lessons of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

Stephen Lendman

Established in 1989, the MA'AN Development Center is "an independent Palestinian development and training institution....work(ing) towards sustainable human development in Palestine" through its various programs. On October 31, it released a publication on the Palestinian BDS campaign titled, "Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions: Lessons learned in effective solidarity."

It's another of the many BDS initiatives multiplying to support Palestine. In July 2005, a coalition of 171 Palestinian Civil Society organizations created the global movement for "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights" for Occupied Palestine, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinian diaspora refugees.

MA'AN covers BDS history and outlines current efforts and challenges to be overcome. Past Palestinian boycotts showed they work. The 1936 six-month strike against the British Mandate demanded a representative government in Palestine, prohibition of land sales to Jews, a cessation of Jewish immigration, and immediate elections. The strike brought the economy to a halt and got the Peel Royal Commission to recommend limited Jewish immigration and plans for eventual partition.

In 1948, the Arab League banned all commercial and financial transactions between Israel and League members.

In 1951, each nation set up a national boycott office, linked to the Damascus headquarters. It maintained a central blacklist of companies.

In 1973, OPEC embargoed oil to America and other countries that supported Israel in the October war.

In November 1975, UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 "determine(d) that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." Under pressure from GHW Bush and Israel as a condition of its Madrid Peace Conference participation, Resolution 46/86 revoked it (in December 1991) saying only that:

"The general assembly decides to revoke the determination contained in its resolution 3379 (XXX) of November 1975."

In 1977, Arab boycott efforts began when the Carter administration called them illegal for US companies. In 1978, the Camp David Accords began normalizing Israeli-Arab relations, effectively undermining boycott efforts.

The First Intifada (1987 - 1993) reactivated them, effectively in Beit Sahour where residents took control of public affairs. Underground schools were established. The community refused to pay taxes. Military ID cards were returned, and all Israeli products were boycotted. Beit Sahour got a 1990 Nobel Peace Prize nomination and continued resisting until the Palestinian Authority (PA) took over in 1995.

In 1993, the Oslo Accords and subsequent Paris Protocols generated immediate normalization. The 1995 Taba summit decelerated boycott efforts further. The outbreak of the 2000 Second Intifada failed to reactivate them. Today, grassroots efforts lead the global BDS movement.

What Is Normalization"

As agreed on during the first Palestinian 2007 BDS Conference:

"Normalization means to participate in any project or initiative or activity, local or international, specifically designed for gathering (either directly or indirectly) Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis whether individuals or institutions; that does not explicitly aim to expose and resist the occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people."

Specifically, this includes projects:

-- not supporting Palestinian rights under international law;

-- implying equal Israeli and Palestinian responsibility for the conflict;

-- denying Palestinians are victims of Israel's colonial project;

-- refusing Palestinian rights to self-determination and the right of return and compensation under UN Resolution 194; and

-- supported by or partnered with Israeli institutions not recognizing Palestinians' legitimate rights.

Boycott As a Grassroots Movement

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor," to wit: the Quartet (US, EU, Russia and UN), the Arab League, and most other nations with few exceptions. To achieve justice, global grassroots movements must pressure official bodies to change.

In August 2002, Palestinian civil society called for a global boycott Israel campaign:

"for the sake of freedom and justice in Palestine and the world....upon the solidarity movement, NGOs, academic and cultural institutions, business companies, political parties and unions, as well as concerned individuals to strengthen and broaden the global Israel Boycott Campaign."

The campaign against South African apartheid began in 1963 when 45 prominent British playwrights refused performing rights anywhere "where discrimination is made among audiences on grounds of colour." By the 1980s, it became a near-total cultural exchange ban.

In 1965, 496 UK academics protested South Africa's racial discrimination and pledged not to accept a position in the country. Other movements advocated against bank lending, South African products, and for divestment. In the mid-1980s, students demanded their universities divest from companies doing business in or having operations in the country. Hampshire College was the first success. Others followed until apartheid finally ended in 1994.

Cultural and Academic Boycott

On April 6, 2002, UK professors Steven and Hilary Rose first presented the idea in an open letter to the London Guardian, saying:

"Despite widespread international condemnation for its policy of violent repression against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government appears impervious to moral appeals from world leaders. (For its part, America) seems reluctant to act. However, there are ways of exerting pressure from within Europe....many national and European cultural and research institutions....regard Israel as a European state for the purposes of awarding grants and contracts. Would it not therefore be timely (for a pan-European moratorium of all further support) unless and until Israel abides by UN resolutions and opens serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians (along the lines of proposed) peace plans."

By July, 700 signatures were registered, including from 10 Israeli academics. Other initiatives followed despite start-and-stop efforts and enormous opposition. They remain viable and have spread globally.

On February 1, 2009 in Occupied Palestine, the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds University said it no longer would cooperate with Israeli academic institutions to:

"pressur(e) Israel to abide by a solution that ends the occupation, a solution that has been needed for far too long and that the international community has stopped demanding."

It followed Israel's Gaza attack and addressed decades of occupation and continued efforts to subvert peace and negotiations to achieve Palestinian self-determination.

Earlier in October 2003, Palestinian academics and intellectuals called on their colleagues in the international community to resist repression and injustice by boycotting Israeli academic institutions. In April 2004, the campaign was consolidated by PACBI's founding (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel).

Palestinian academics and intellectuals launched it by "buil(ding) on the Palestinian call for a comprehensive economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel issued in August 2002 (followed by further calls) in October 2003."

Its statement of principles read:

-- "to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions until Israel withdraws from all lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem;

-- removes all its colonies in those lands;

-- agrees to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian refugee rights; and

-- dismantles its system of apartheid."

PACBI's call got wide support from Palestinian academia and civil society.

Church Divestment

Christian churches in America, the UK, Canada, and elsewhere have begun to call for boycotting and divesting from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation. Examples include:

-- in 2005, the United Church of Christ (UCC) endorsed divestment, not as yet implemented;

-- in 2005, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted a "positive investment" policy to foster regional peace and cooperation;

-- in 2006, the United Church of Canada's Toronto branch began boycotting Israeli products and companies doing business with its military;

-- in 2006, the US Presbyterian Church urged various companies, including Caterpillar, ITT, Motorola, and others to invest in West Bank and Gaza companies;

-- in 2008, the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire passed a resolution for divesting in companies supporting and/or profiting from the Occupation; and

-- in 2009, the Church of England divested from Caterpillar stocks, the company whose bulldozers and equipment is used to demolish Palestinian homes.

Student Campaigns

Students led international protests against Operation Cast Lead. On January 13, 2009, they occupied a University of London building, igniting student occupations at 29 US and UK universities in solidarity with Gaza. They called for:

-- condemning the attack;

-- divestment in companies doing business with Israel, especially ones providing military weapons, munitions, and equipment;

-- sending computers and books to Gaza students and providing scholarships; and

-- arranging lectures and debates about the Occupation.

Other civil society initiatives included participants at a July 2005 UN International Civil Society Conference in support of Middle East peace unanimously adopting the Palestinian Call for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions). In November 2007, the first BDS conference was held, and the Boycott National Committee (BNC) formed in the same year to build and spread boycotts as a central form of resistance.

Targeting Israeli Companies with Colonial Operations

Agrexco is the most prominent, a 50% state owned company exporting fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs from Israel and its West Bank locations. It's one of the three largest Israeli companies exporting from Occupied Palestine while labeling their products "made in Israel."

The campaign began in 2005 when activists blockaded the company's depot in Middlesex, UK, stopping all deliveries for over eight hours. Other actions followed and continue. Protestors accuse Agrexco of complicity with crimes of war and against humanity and cite the destroyed Palestinian economy forcing West Bank workers, including children, to survive on 30 shekels a day with no unions or benefits.

Lev Leviev was also targeted, the Israeli diamond mogul and real estate baron who finances Israeli colonies in the West Bank. In November 2007, a surprise protest was held at his Manhattan boutique. Others followed in different countries against his real estate partner Shaya Boymelgreen's company Green Park, including a Bi'lin village $2 million suit for building and selling settlement housing on village land in violation of international law.

"Key to the success so far has been the level of coordination and the involvement of Palestinian villages and organizations in the campaign" to:

-- engage the press;

-- attract Hollywood celebrity endorsers;

-- get the UK government to boycott Leviev over his West Bank construction ;

-- have UNICEF cut ties with him;

-- Oxfam International and the US Carousel of Hope charity to refuse his donations;

-- get the Arab League's Damascus Boycott Office to consider adding his companies to its boycott list; and

-- have Dubai refuse to let him open new stores there under his name.

Economic Isolation Works

Western governments supported South African apartheid until civil society group actions got corporations to divest, paving the way for government boycotts and sanctions. "The timeline of action "during the Gaza massacre suggests a similar pattern:"

-- on January 13, 2009, the Greek government announced that a ship with munitions for Israel wasn't welcome; students at 29 US and UK universities protested for divestment and severing cultural and academic ties with Israel;

-- on January 14, Amnesty International (AI) called for a global arms embargo against Israel; the EU and European Commission announced a freeze in upgrading relations with Israel;

-- on January 16, Qatar closed Israel's trade office in Doha and gave Israeli officials a week to leave the country; Mauritania suspended trade relations as well;

-- on January 20, the Stockholm community council announced that the French company, Veolia, lost a future eight-year contract to build and maintain a railway through East Jerusalem that connects Israeli settlements in the West Bank;

-- on February 1, Belgium ended arms exports to Israel;

-- on February 5, South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) dockworkers refused to offfload a ship carrying Israeli goods;

-- on February 9, 23 vicars encouraged the Church of England to divest;

-- on February 12, Hampshire College became the first US university to divest from companies involved with the Occupation;

-- on February 26, UK-based Cardiff University divested all shares from BAE Systems and GE's aerospace arm over their IDF dealings;

-- on April 2, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the New York Campaign to Boycott Israel and others got Motorola to sell its Government Electronics Department, a unit that supplied military-related items to Israel;

-- on April 13, the Dutch Labor Party sought sanctions against Israel;

-- on April 14, French corporation Veolia's transportation branch lost a Bordeaux contract worth 750 million euros; it's lost business now totals over $7.5 billion.

Israel's Tarnished Brand Name

When sustained with enough pressure, economic boycott works. In February 2009, the Israeli Export Institute reported that 10% of 400 exporters got order cancellations over Operation Cast Lead. In March, the Israel Manufacturers Association said 21% of 90 local exporters questioned reported a drop in demand due to boycotts, mostly in UK and Scandinavian counties.

In Europe, supermarkets are re-labeling Israeli products made in Cyprus or Spain because "made in Israel" no longer sells.

The Challenge of Dependency

Since 1967, Israel forced dependency on the Territories by controlling its ports, land crossings, and airports, compounded by hundreds of West Bank checkpoints and the Separation Wall. As a result around 90% of it is with Israel, while 75% of imported goods are Israeli-made. Conditions are especially acute in Gaza because of war and closure, meaning only Israeli-approved goods can enter, and too few of those under siege.

A Working BDS Framework

Just as civil society-led boycotts ended South African apartheid, so can they end decades of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity against Occupied Palestine. They work, more than ever after human rights reports on Operation Cast Lead documented what no longer can be tolerated. The task is to build global outrage to critical mass enough for change.

Organizations in 20 countries now participate under the banner of the International Coordinating Network on Palestine (ICNP). Formed in 2002, it calls itself "a body of civil society organizations....under the auspices of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People."

Its mission "is to strengthen the role of civil society in supporting and demanding, of governments and international institutions, the full implementation" of all Palestinian rights under international law, including to self-determination, national independence, and sovereignty.

ICNP coordinates global campaigns; facilitates communication; aids local organizations' plans civil society conferences; and mobilizes global BDS support. It strives for representation on every continent in many more nations than the following now participating:

-- Australia;

-- Belgium;

-- Canada;

-- the autonomous Catalonian northeast Spanish community and its capital, Barcelona;

-- Denmark;

-- France;

-- Egypt;

-- Greece;

-- Iceland;

-- Italy;

-- Netherlands;

-- Norway;

-- Scotland;

-- South Africa;

-- Spain;

-- the UK; and

-- US.

BDS initiatives include:

-- academic and cultural boycotts to tell Israel that its "occupation and discrimination against Palestinians is unacceptable;" Israel practices militarized apartheid combined with religious fundamentalist bigotry; non-Jewish voices are excluded; Israeli children are taught to deny a Palestinian identity; through close monitoring, Israel cracks down hard against non-compliers;

-- consumer boycotts through bad publicity, building public awareness, pressuring stores to remove Israeli products, encouraging companies to stop buying Israeli technology, and overall creating an inhospitable climate for Israeli commerce;

-- sports boycotts to highlight Israeli oppression and discrimination and stop its self-promotion as a "fair player" in bilateral and international competition; at the same time to promote a Palestinian presence in these events to support their right to identity and self-determination;

-- divestment/disinvestment in Israel and companies globally that support its occupation and oppression; encourage and pressure individuals, businesses, organizations, universities, pension funds, and governments to shed their Israeli investments to exert pressure for change;

-- sanctions, starting with open debate and raising awareness on applying them; followed by implementing comprehensive economic, political, and military measures to isolate the Jewish state; ending Israel's membership in economic and political bodies like the UN, WHO, Red Cross, WTO, and OECD;

-- end cooperation agreements under which Israel gets preferential treatment on trade, joint research and development, and various other projects; Israel's Export and International Cooperation Institute reported in 2006 that participation of its companies in global 2005 projects grew by 150% over 2004 - from $600 million in to $1.5 billion; Israel is the only non-European country participating in the EU's Sixth Framework Programme for R & D and gets preferential treatment as a member; many international agreements have clauses that bind participating countries to human rights, international law, and democratic standards; Israel disdains them, and must be challenged and excluded as a result;

-- efforts at the local, regional, and institutional levels to build greater individual awareness and support;

-- ending military ties over Israel's role as a serial aggressor; militarism and violence define its culture; confrontation is practiced over diplomacy, and peaceful coexistence is a non-starter; despite its own technology, it's heavily dependent on America and other nations for hardware and munitions supplies; breaking that connection can curb its crimes of war and against humanity; heightening public awareness is crucial to accomplishing this goal;

-- involving faith-based bodies and institutions regarding moral and human rights issues, not religion; and

-- working cooperatively with trade unions; Palestinian ones faced Zionist attacks since the 1920s, especially from the Histadrut General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel; it's replaced Arab workers with Jewish ones; in 1965, the General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW) was founded to organize West Bank, Gaza, and diaspora labor; in 1986, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) grew out of Occupied Palestine's labor movement; today it's ineffective given condition under Occupation and Israeli discrimination against its Arab citizens, consigning them to low wage, few, or no benefit jobs; Histadrut represents only Jews.

Beyond Boycott

Boycotting Israeli products successfully needs a transition to Palestinian ones, but much work is needed to achieve it, including effective promotion. Several organizations doing it include:

-- PalTrade: an organization mandated to promote Palestinian products locally and internationally;

-- Palestinian Federation of Industries (PFI) and "Watani:" they support local producers to upgrade quality and urge government and institutions to enact policies to back local production; and

-- Intajuna: a three-year project to get Palestinians to prefer locally-produced products.

These initiatives along with a committed, grassroots global BDS movement is crucial to ending decades of subjugation under an oppressive occupier that won't quit until forced by committed pressure. BDS is the tool to do it.

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Stephen Lendman: I was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. Raised in a modest middle class family, attended public schools, received a BA from Harvard University in 1956 and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of PA in 1960 following 2 years of obligatory military service in the US Army. Spent the next 6 years as a marketing research analyst for several large US corporations before becoming part of a new small family business in 1967, remaining there until retiring at the end of 1999. Have since devoted my time and efforts to the progressive causes and organizations I support, all involved in working for a more humane and just world for all people everywhere, but especially for the most needy, disadvantaged and oppressed. My efforts since summer 2005 have included writing on a broad range of vital topics ranging from war and peace; social, economic and political equity for all; and justice for all the oppressed peoples of the world like the long-suffering people of Haiti and the Palestinians. Also co-hosting The Global Research News Hour, occasional public talks, and frequent appearances on radio and at times television.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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