Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions


The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a Palestinian-led 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, 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". The movement is organized and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
The BDS movement is modeled after the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Its proponents compare the situation in Israel to apartheid. Protests and conferences in support of the movement have been held in several countries.
Some critics say the BDS movement is antisemitic, questions the legitimacy of Israel, and is similar to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.
BDS' mascot which features on its logotype is Handala, a symbol of Palestinian identity and defiance.

Background

During the Second Intifada, Palestinians began developing new nonviolent methods focused on garnering international support for pressure on Israel. This led to international calls for boycotts of Israeli institutions, including academic and cultural ones.
In April 2002, during the height of the Israeli invasion of Palestinian cities and towns, a British-led initiative called for a moratorium on academic collaboration with Israeli institutions. It quickly racked up over 700 signatures, among them Colin Blakemore and Richard Dawkins who said that they could no longer "in good conscience continue to cooperate with official Israeli institutions, including universities." Other similar initatives followed during the summer. In August 2002, Palestinian organization 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. In 2004, an attempt to coordinate the boycotts gained momentum after the start of the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier.
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. 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. 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.
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.

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.
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".
BDS sees the Israeli legal definition of itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" as contradictory. 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."
BDS demands that Israel end its "three forms of injustices that infringe international law and Palestinian rights" by:
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." BDS therefore repudiates the 1993 Oslo accords and similar attempts at compromising with Israel. Barghouti has also written:
"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. For those reasons, BDS opposes normalization activities such as dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, which it argues is counterproductive.
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.
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.

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.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee was established at the first Palestinian BDS conference in Ramallah in November 2007. 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. Thousands of organizations and groups are part of the global BDS movement, some of which are the BNC's main partners.
A precursor to BDS is the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which was founded in April 2004 in Ramallah with Barghouti as a founding committee member. PACBI led the campaign for the academic and cultural boycotts of Israel. It has since been integrated into the larger BDS movement.

Methods

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.
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.
BDS has found the most success in university settings.
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. 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.

Campaigns and activities

AXA Divest

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. According to a report by corporate responsibility watchdog SumOfUs, AXA's involvement in Israel's occupation could expose it for criminal prosecution.

Derail Veolia and Alstom

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. According to BDS, the boycott had cost Veolia an estimated $20 billion as of 2015.

Orange

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. While BDS hailed the move as a significant victory, Orange said it was ending its relationship with Partner for purely commercial reasons.

Stop G4S

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

Red Card Israel

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. In 2018, it scored a victory as Argentina's national football team canceled an upcoming friendly game in Jerusalem.

Puma

In April 2019, BDS launched a global campaign to boycott sportswear manufacturer Puma because of its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association. The IFA includes football clubs based in Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law.
In October 2019, activists placed unauthorized posters urging people to boycott Puma in the London underground. Transport for London said that it was flyposting and that it would immediately take action against the posters.
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.

Boycott Eurovision 2019

BDS ran a campaign to get artists to boycott Eurovision Song Contest 2019, which was held in Tel Aviv. 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. Although none of the acts scheduled to appear pulled out, activists considered the campaign successful due to the controversy it generated.
American pop star Madonna was one of the artists whose appearances at Eurovision BDS urged to cancel. 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." 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."
In September 2018, 140 artists signed an open letter in support of a boycott of Eurovision. 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".
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 scorned the group.

Israel Apartheid Week

Groups affiliated with BDS holds worldwide events known as Israel Apartheid Week in February or March each year. According to BDS, the events' aim is to raise awareness of Israel's apartheid regime. According BDS's opponents, the events are intended to link Israel to negatively charged words such as "apartheid" and "racism."
Since Israel Apartheid Week began in Toronto in 2005, it has since spread to at least 55 cities around the world, including locations in Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Austria, Jordan, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Botswana, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, Mexico, Norway, Australia, and Palestine.

Academic boycott

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.
Like the BDS-led cultural boycott, the academic boycott targets Israeli institutions and not individual academics.
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.

Reception

A large number of academics and scholarly associations have supported the academic boycott, including luminaries such as the late Stephen Hawking.
In 2007, the American Jewish Committee ran an ad in The Times titled "Boycott Israeli universities? Boycott ours, too!" It was 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." In the International Socialist Review, Phil Gasper, responded 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.
In December 2013, the American Studies Association joined the boycott of all Israeli academic institutions. Judea Pearl lambasted the ASA's endorsement of the boycott and wrote that it had a "non-academic character". In 2014, an international Jewish group, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, issued a list of signatories endorsing ASA's academic boycott.
While the academic boycott has broad support in Palestinian civil society, a handful of Palestinian scholars have come out against it. 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.
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 sentiment within student bodies, faculty, and academic departments.

Controversies

After previously agreeing to write a letter of recommendation for a student, a University of Michigan professor declined to write it after discovering the student was planning to study in Israel. After critics called a letter to the student anti-semitic, the professor said he supports BDS for human rights reasons and rejects antisemitism. Guidelines from a Palestinian organization associated with BDS say faculty "should not accept to write recommendations for students hoping to pursue studies in Israel". 58 civil rights, religious, and education advocacy organizations called on the university to sanction the professor. University officials ended the controversy by disciplining the professor 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."

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.
BDS distinguishes between individuals and institutions. Unlike the cultural boycott against South Africa, BDS's cultural boycott does not target individuals. BDS supports the right to freedom of expression and rejects boycotts based on identity or opinion. 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.
BDS also argues for a boycott of "normalization projects", which it defines as "ultural activities, projects, events and products involving Palestinians and/or other Arabs on one side and Israelis on the other 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." 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. 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.

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

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."
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."

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". After criticism from Spain's daily paper El País and the Spanish government as well as Jewish organisations, 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."
BDS País Valencià denied the allegation that Matisyahu was targeted because of his Jewish background and wrote that they tried to get him canceled because of his views on Israel. In particular, they stated that he had previously played at a fundraiser for the IDF, at a conference for the pro-Israeli lobby group AIPAC and had defended Israel's boarding boarding of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters. Mark LeVine commented that it hardly would have been surprising if a festival had canceled a Palestinian-American rapper who professed support for Hamas.
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.

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.
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.
A 2015 Israeli Knesset report concluded that BDS had no impact on Israel's export-dependent economy and that exports to Europe were growing.
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.
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. Norway's YMCA-YWCA joined the boycott in 2014, announcing that it would support " broad economic boycott of goods and services from Israel and Israeli settlements".

Impact on West Bank Palestinians

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.
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. In the former SodaStream factory in the Ma'ale Adumim settlement, there was hardly any difference in pay between SodaStream and other Palestinian factories. Most Palestinian employees had renewable seasonal contracts that lasted three months.
According to a study by Al Quds University, 82% of Palestinians working in Israeli settlements said they would quit their jobs if alternative employment were available in the West Bank. Barghouti has said that the fact that "tens of thousands" of Palestinians work in settlements is the direct result of Israeli policy. For decades Israel has been "systematically destroying Palestinian industry and agriculture, confiscating our most fertile lands and richest water reserves, and imposing extreme restrictions of movement preventing many from reaching their workplaces". According to the BDS-affilliated Who Profits, all Palestinian trade and labor unions and almost all Palestinian civil society organizations support the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions.

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. 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.
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.

Responses

Responses by Palestinian authorities

During a visit to South Africa in 2013, President Mahmoud Abbas stunned reporters and Palestinian activists by stating that the Palestinians do not support a general boycott of Israel. He supported, however, a boycott of settlement products. Barghouti told Electronic Intifada that Abbas's statement conflicted with the mission of BDS.
At the 25th African Union assembly in the South Africa in June 2015, President Abbas urged the African countries to boycott goods produced by settlement companies in the West Bank.

Responses by Israeli authorities

In March 2016, the Israeli Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Yisrael Katz argued that Israel should employ "targeted civil eliminations" against leaders of the BDS movement. The expression puns on the Hebrew word for targeted assassinations.
In June 2016, Haaretz reported that Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister 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. The news came on the heels of a report that Israel's efforts to fight the BDS movement have 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 budget 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."
On 7 January 2018, Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs published a list of twenty specific non-government organizations whose officials would be banned from entering the country, including the BDS national committee, BDS France, BDS South Africa, BDS Italy, BDS Chile, and BDS Kampagne.
In a response to Ireland's progressing of the Control of Economic Activity Bill 2018, the Israeli prime minister issued a press release that "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." According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Irish ambassador said that this is not a BDS initiative and that the Irish government opposes BDS.
On 15 August 2019, Israel caused controversy by using a law passed in 2017, enabling it to refuse entry to supporters of the BDS, to ban two US congresspersons; Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Fourteen people have been denied entry on this basis including seven French politicians and European Union parliamentarians in late 2017.

Responses by other governments

Austria

The Austrian National Council, the lower house of the Austrian parliament on 27 February 2020 unanimously adopted a resolution condemning antisemitism and "antisemitism directed at Israel". It strongly condemned the BDS movement and urged the government not to provide aid to groups that express anti-Semitic views or "question Israel's right of existence." In response, BDS condemned the "anti-Palestinian" resolution and said that it undermined the fight against real anti-Jewish racism.

Canada

In 2016, a non-binding motion was passed in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario that "calls on the legislature to stand against any movement that promotes hate, prejudice and racism" and "reject the 'differential treatment' of Israel by the BDS movement". The motion was supported by the two largest parties, the governing centrist Ontario Liberal Party and the opposition centre-right Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, with only the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party opposed.

Czech Republic

On 22 October 2019, the Chamber of Deputies passed a non-binding resolution "condemn all activities and statements by groups calling for a boycott of the State of Israel, its goods, services or citizens." The resolution was introduced by Jan Bartošek, leader of the chamber's Christian Democrats caucus.

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

France

In France, the 2003 Lellouche law outlaws discrimination based on a variety of immutable characteristics, including national origin." In 2015, that law and hate speech laws were applied against BDS activities in the court of appeals, but on 11 June 2020, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that the criminal conviction of 12 people involved in a campaign to boycott products imported from Israel had "no sufficient grounds and violated their freedom of expression"; compensation of 27,380 euros was awarded to each campaigner.

Germany

In December 2017, Munich passed a bill banning boycotts of Israel, becoming the first German city to deny space and public funds for the BDS campaign. Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and chairwoman of the Munich Jewish community who campaigned for the legislation, said, "Munich sent a signal against antisemitism". In May 2018, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg called BDS a "new variation of antisemitism."
In September 2018, the parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, barred public institutions from hosting and supporting BDS groups. On Friday 13 September 2019, the Administrative Court of Cologne instructed the City of Bonn to admit the German-Palestinian Women's Association to the annual Bonn Culture and Encounter Festival. The city had excluded the association because of its support for the BDS Movement. According to the court, the City of Bonn has "not even remotely" demonstrated any justification for this exclusion. In its ruling, the court clarified the status of this and other anti-BDS motions: "The motions of the Bonn City Council, as well as the motions of the parliament of North-Rhine Westphalia and the German Bundestag, don’t constitute legislative acts, but are political resolutions or expressions of political will. These motions alone cannot justify, from any legal perspective, the restriction of an existing legal right".
In May 2019, the German Bundestag passed a "symbolic" non-binding resolution declaring BDS antisemitic and stating that it was "reminiscent of the most terrible chapter in German history". The lower house voted down a competing motion from the far-right Alternative for Germany party that called for BDS to be banned entirely. The Left Party refused to support the motion but said they also rejected BDS. Three German Nazi parties—The III. Path, The Right and the National Democratic Party—support BDS. In response to the declaration, a group of 60 Israeli academics responded with a letter that criticized the motion and said it was part of a larger effort to delegitimize supporters of Palestine.

Ireland

passed two resolutions on 9 April 2018 endorsing the BDS movement that included a motion to boycott Hewlett Packard goods, for its complicity concerning Israeli occupation. In doing so, it became the first European capital to endorse BDS.

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." 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.

Spain

In 2018, Navarre, a state in northern Spain, was the first to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. It passed a motion that requested Spain "suspend its ties with Israel until the country ceases its policy of criminal repression of the Palestinian population."
Spain's third largest city, Valencia, passed a resolution to boycott Israeli citizens and companies. It declares that the city is "free of Israeli apartheid”, and calls for it to formally follow the BDS movement. A Spanish court found the resolution to be discriminatory and illegal a year later. It has since been annulled.
In August 2018, two Spanish municipalities rescinded their BDS motions, following legal action.

United Kingdom

In 2014, Leicester City Council passed a motion which supported BDS in boycotting goods originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank to oppose "continuing illegal occupation" of Palestinian territory and the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. Other councils that have implemented boycotts supporting BDS include Swansea Council, and Gwynedd Council. Legal action against the councils brought by Jewish Human Rights Watch was subsequently dismissed by both the High Court and then the Court of Appeal in July 2018. The councils were all cleared of anti-Semitism over the Israeli goods boycott.
The lead judgment given by Lord Justice Sales stated that the council's motion condemned 'certain actions' of Israel's government yet still recognised the state of Israel's right to exist. He said, "The condemnation was in line with a respectable body of opinion, including the UK government, the United Nations General Assembly, the European Union and the International Court of Justice." He added, "the criticism made was temperate and legitimate." Lord Justice Floyd and Lord Justice Underhill supported his decision. The judgment also stated that similar judgments were a "well-known gesture of political solidarity with oppressed groups overseas, as illustrated by calls for boycotts of goods from South Africa during the apartheid era".
Leicester City Council's barrister, Kamal Adatia noted, 'The ruling totally endorses Leicester's approach to handling this motion, and has made no change whatsoever to the way in which councils can pass such motions in future. The judgement is a landmark – not for organisations like JHRW – but for all local councils. It recognises their fundamental right to pass motions of this nature and makes it clear that they can, like Leicester, fully comply with their equality duties when doing so.'
In February 2016, the British government banned boycotts of Israeli goods by public authorities, stating said authorities would face severe penalties should they enact such a boycott, as the government deemed such boycotts damaging to community cohesion and hurting Britain's national security. In 2017, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign launched court action against the law with the support of the Quakers, the Campaign Against Arms Trade, and War on Want. After winning its case in the High Court, it then lost in the Court of Appeal, before finally winning in the Supreme Court in April 2020. The PSC's legal challenge was based on the principle that the government did not have the power to ban "ethical pensions divestment". The Supreme Court's decision allows Local Government Pension Scheme funds to divest from or boycott companies involved in Israel's illegal settlement programmes and siege of the Gaza Strip.
In December 2019, Eric Pickles, special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, announced that Boris Johnson would attempt to pass a law banning local councils from supporting BDS.

United States

The reaction to BDS in the United States has been especially polarizing. Several bills and resolutions have been written in federal and state legislatures with the intent to combat BDS.
In April 2015, Tennessee became the first U.S. state to pass a resolution condemning BDS., 27 states had passed various anti-BDS measures. , 29 states had anti-BDS laws, either by legislation or executive order. The laws prohibit state offices from doing business with companies that boycott Israel. The states include Alabama, California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Kentucky.
In several states, these laws have been challenged on First Amendment grounds for violating citizens' freedom of speech. 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. The Texas, Kansas, and Arizona legislatures amended their states' anti-BDS laws in response to criticism and lawsuits.
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 and supported by the ACLU and J Street.

Support

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". 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". Scotland's Green Party endorsed a boycott of Israel in October 2015. 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. In June 2018 the Socialist International issued a Declaration expressing support for "Boycott, divestment and sanctions 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". The Israeli activist organization Boycott from Within supports the BDS campaign. Boycott From Within regularly releases statements calling on musicians to cancel concerts scheduled in Israel.
Some political parties have supported BDS, such as the NSW Greens in Australia and the Québec solidaire in Canada.

Trade unions

The Congress of South African Trade Unions supports the campaign for BDS against Israel, fully endorsing it in July 2011. During the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, COSATU vowed to "intensify" their support for the campaign, picketing Woolworths for stocking Israeli goods.
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. In July of that year, the UK's Unite the Union voted to join BDS.
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.
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".

Public figures

The South African cleric Desmond Tutu has endorsed the BDS Movement, 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." 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."

Opposition

Artists, actors, and writers

People who oppose the BDS movement include Howard Stern and Ed Asner.
Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt said:
I do think that the B.D.S. movement, at its heart—when you see what is really behind it, and the people who have organized it—is intent on the destruction of the State of Israel. If you look at the founding documents of the groups that first proposed B.D.S., they called for a full right of return, and, essentially, in practical terms, they’re calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. I think the ultimate objective of B.D.S. is not B.D.S. itself. If that were the case, we would all have to give up our iPhones, because so much of that technology is created in Israel. I think the objective of B.D.S., and especially the people who are the main organizers and supporters, is to make anything that comes out of Israel toxic, and I think they have had some success. So I see that, but I do not think that any kid who supports B.D.S. is ipso facto an anti-Semite. I think that’s wrong. It’s a mistake. And it’s not helpful.

Political

Political parties that oppose BDS include the Liberal Party of Australia and both major political parties in the United States. A common reason given for opposing BDS is that it attacks Israel's legitimacy and fosters antisemitism. Berlin's Social Democratic Party 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.

Trade unions

In December 2015, the executive board of the United Auto Workers struck down a vote by UAW Local 2865 to support BDS. Local 2865 represents students workers at the University of California.

Public figures

said that Israel is used to debate, criticism, and controversy, but that BDS is an attempt to influence discussion in unhealthy ways. "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," Rivlin wrote in a 2016 Ynetnews op-ed. He added, "I'm sorry to say that 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.'"
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 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.
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."
Former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair, David Cameron and Theresa May have condemned calls for a boycott of Israel.

Other

The Arab Council for Regional Integration, a group of 32 Arab intellectuals, repudiated BDS at a London conference in November 2019. 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." 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.

Criticism

According to Yehuda Ben Meir and Owen Alterman in an essay published in the Strategic Survey for Israel 2011 by the Institute for National Security Studies, by depicting Israel as a racist, fascist, totalitarian, and apartheid state, BDS engages in defamation and demonization of Israel. They state that this is followed by the specific targeting of Israeli diplomatic, economic, academic, and cultural targets—regardless of their position or connection to the conflict, which they describe as incitement. 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. The Israeli Reut Institute has argued that the BDS movement singles out Israel, and applies double standards that delegitimize Israel.
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. By early 2014, however, they noted that the campaign, "nce derided as the scheming of crackpots", was "turning mainstream" in the eyes of many Israelis. 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. 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. 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."
Dershowitz also argued that the BDS movement disincentivizes the Palestinian leadership from negotiating with Israel at present. 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.

Connections to terrorism

Some of BDS's opponents have criticized what they say are close ties to militant organizations in the Middle East.
In February 2019, the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry reported that a number of current or former members of designated terrorist organizations, especially Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were financially and organizationally involved in BDS. For example, Rasmea Yousef Odeh, a former PFLP member who participated in a bombing that killed two students in 1969, participated in meetings organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and National Students for Justice in Palestine in the United States. Between 2017 and 2019, 30 financial accounts linked to BDS were shut down in the United States and Europe after it was discovered that they had ties with terror groups. BDS organizers said the report was "wildly fabricated" and declined to respond.
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."

Allegations of antisemitism

The Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Israeli officials categorize the BDS movement as antisemitic. ADL National Director Abraham Foxman wrote an advertisement that ran in The New York Times that criticized Brooklyn College's political science department for sponsoring a conference promoting BDS. In the ad, he called the BDS movement antisemitic "at its very core".
Other arguments include:
Several replies have been made to the allegations above: