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116-704: The Freedom Flotilla Coalition launched the Women's Boat to Gaza to raise awareness of the role of women in advancing the Palestinian struggle in the Palestinian Territories and diaspora. The Women's Boat to Gaza also supported the goals of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign: The Women's Boat to Gaza had a total of 26 participants. The voyage was divided into three legs: Barcelona to Ajaccio, Ajaccio to Messina, and Messina to Gaza. Each leg

232-494: A double standard and delegitimizing the state of Israel . As of 2024, 38 states have passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts of Israel. Many of them have been passed with broad bipartisan support. Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel. Separately,

348-610: A human rights movement , and compare the Palestinians' plight to that of apartheid-era black South Africans . 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 "right of return" . Some critics accuse the BDS movement of antisemitism , a charge the movement denies, calling it an attempt to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism . The Israel lobby in

464-464: A Jewish state in Palestine. Accepting modern-day Jewish-Israelis as equal citizens and full partners in building and developing a new shared society, free from all colonial subjugation and discrimination, as called for in the democratic state model, is the most magnanimous, rational offer any oppressed indigenous population can present to its oppressors. So don't ask for more. Norman Finkelstein ,

580-575: 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 South African apartheid 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. According to BDS, Israel upholds

696-512: A boycott against white merchants in Claiborne . The goal of the boycott was to pressure city officials to meet demands about racial integration. The Supreme Court in its decision found that boycotts to bring about political change occupy "the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values". Proponents contend that boycotting is not per se expressive conduct equivalent to speech and therefore not protected speech. They view calling for

812-419: A boycott as distinct from participating in one. The former would be protected speech, while the latter, which anti-BDS laws address, would not. Someone calling for a boycott of Israel would not be affected by anti-BDS laws as long as they themselves did not boycott Israel. To them, Claiborne Hardware is irrelevant because it affirmed the right to call for a boycott but not to participate in one. This view

928-577: A boycott campaign against the South African retail chain Woolworths in 2014 over its trade relations with Israel. It was the first comprehensive consumer boycott of a South African retailer since 1994. The campaign used the Twitter hashtag #BoycottWoolworths which rapidly became one of the top trending hashtags on South African Twitter. The campaign attracted international media attention and

1044-410: A boycott limited to Israeli West Bank settlements to pressure the Israeli government to stop building settlements. Peter Beinart in 2012 proposed a "Zionist BDS" that would advocate divestment from Israeli West Bank settlements but oppose divestment from Israeli companies. This, Beinart argued, would legitimize Israel and delegitimize the occupation, thus challenging both the vision of BDS and that of

1160-399: A boycott of Israel is one of the few remaining options. Critics claim that anti-BDS laws are unconstitutional because participation in political boycotts is protected speech and the government cannot require citizens to relinquish First Amendment rights in exchange for government contracts. To show this, critics refer to NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. which was about an NAACP -initiated

1276-644: A boycott of Israeli academic institutions or scholars. The bill died after being deferred to the United States House Committee on Education and Labor . Roskam and co-sponsor Juan Vargas introduced another anti-BDS bill, United States-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act ( H.R. 825 ), in February 2015. According to them, the bill would "leverage ongoing trade negotiations to discourage prospective U.S. trade partners from engaging in economic discrimination against Israel" through

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1392-401: A certificate that she was not involved in a boycott of Israel, which she refused to do. KSDE therefore declined to pay or contract with Koontz. Koontz brought a lawsuit against the state, represented by Kansas Commissioner of Education, Randall Watson and requested a preliminary injunction. The court granted Koontz request for a preliminary injunction, arguing that the law the state relied on

1508-470: A colonial, ethnocentric, apartheid state. Sriram Ananth writes that the BDS Call asks people to uncompromisingly stand against oppression. In his view, liberal Zionists have failed to do so by not endorsing the BDS Call. BDS describes "normalization" as a process by which Palestinians are compelled to stop resisting and to accept their subjugation. BDS analogizes it to a "colonization of the mind", whereby

1624-466: A declaration named the BDS Call, are non-negotiable to BDS. Co-founder of the movement Omar 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." Barghouti has also written: Ending the largely discernible aspects of Israeli occupation while maintaining effective control over most of

1740-473: A duty on states to "condemn racial segregation and apartheid" and to "prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction". The court further said member states should not recognize Israel's occupation as legal, nor should they render aid or assistance in maintaining it – a ruling that could "force companies and member states to differentiate between Israel and occupied territory when it comes to trade", according to

1856-565: A facade of democracy but is not and cannot be a democracy because it is, in Omar Barghouti's words, "a settler-colonial state". Opponents have argued that comparing Israel to South Africa's apartheid regime "demonizes" Israel and is antisemitic. Supporters argue that there is nothing antisemitic in calling Israel an apartheid state. To support that view, they cite prominent anti-apartheid activists such as Desmond Tutu and South African politician Ronnie Kasrils , who both have said that

1972-472: 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. BDS believes that Israel is an apartheid state as defined by two international treaties, the 1973 The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of

2088-569: A large number of countries that have embraced BDS. In March 2015, the Boycott Our Enemies, not Israel Act ( H.R. 1572 ) was introduced to the 114th session of Congress by Republican Representative Doug Lamborn to the House with 13 cosponsors. The bill required current and prospective government contractors to certify that they did not participate in a boycott of Israel. If they did, they would face penalties. The bill died in

2204-816: A legal doctrine for establishing causality in discrimination cases, is that BDS would not have boycotted Israel if not for its Jewish or Israeli identity. Critics counter that the but-for claim is not supported by evidence. They argue that since the majority of companies targeted for boycotts by the BNC are not Israeli companies, but foreign companies targeted for their complicity in the Israeli human rights violations, anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli animosity could not be BDS' motivation. Critics reason that if political boycotts of countries were illegal discrimination, many current and historical boycotts would also be illegal discrimination. The US sanctions against Iran would be anti-Iranian discrimination and if singling out an entity for boycott

2320-711: A legitimate protest tactic. According to a 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center , 5% of Americans support BDS and 84% do not know much about it. 17% of Republicans have some familiarity with BDS compared to 15% of Democrats, while 7% of the latter and 2% of Republicans support the movement. The spread of anti-BDS laws in U.S. states is largely due to the lobbying of the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), an umbrella group of Israel lobbies headquartered in Jerusalem that has received funding from

2436-873: A letter calling for help from the "global civil society". The letter asked activists to demand that their governments suspend economic relations with Israel in order to stop its campaign of apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. In April 2002, Steven and Hilary Rose, professors at the Open University and the University of Bradford, initiated a call for a moratorium on academic collaboration with Israeli institutions. It quickly racked up over 700 signatories, 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." Similar initiatives followed in

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2552-691: A particular group (Israelis) with the intent of inflicting economic harm on them. Since there is no legal test for deciding whether a consumer boycott is discriminatory, the discrimination argument is based on laws regulating discrimination in other areas, such as employment, disability and housing. In particular, two doctrines in labor law have been referred to: disparate treatment or "discriminatory intent" and disparate impact . These laws were not drafted to regulate political boycotts, which limits their applicability, but they have nevertheless been used to analyze whether boycotts of Israel are discriminatory. Disparate treatment refers to decision-making based on

2668-866: A person's membership in a protected class. Proponents argue that BDS leaders' calls for Israel to cease to exist as a "Jewish state" are antisemitic. Critics contend that the allegation is conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Opposing Israel as a Jewish state is anti-Zionist but not antisemitic, they argue. Critics also point out that the organization that coordinates BDS, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), officially opposes anti-Semitism and encourages supporters to select boycott targets based on their complicity in Israel's human rights violations and likelihood of success, rather than on their national origin or religious identity. Proponents note that BDS singles out Israel for boycott while ignoring human rights abuses in other parts of

2784-567: A privilege from boycotters: that of being eligible for government contracts. This argument runs afoul of the "unconstitutional conditions" doctrine, critics argue. The doctrine holds that the government "may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests—especially, his interest in freedom of speech". This doctrine was promulgated in two seminal Supreme Court cases; Pickering v. Board of Education and Elrod v. Burns . However, these cases involved existing business relations between private entities and

2900-497: A rejection of the peace process paradigm of equalizing both sides in favor of seeing the situation as a colonial conflict between a native population and a settler-colonial state supported by Western powers. Others argue that BDS should be understood in terms of its purported roots in the Arab League 's boycott of Zionist goods from Mandatory Palestine . According to the archaeologist and ancient historian Alex Joffe , BDS

3016-595: A report by corporate responsibility watchdog SumOfUs , AXA's involvement in Israel's occupation could expose it to criminal prosecution. 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

3132-688: A senior legal adviser of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights quoted by the Washington Post . After the Oslo Accords had failed to bring peace between Israel and Palestine , believing Western leaders were no longer committed in holding Israel accountable for the allegations against human rights, Palestinian human right activists conceived a new peaceful movement to boycott Israel, for example, through refusal to buy any goods from Israel, in particular those made in

3248-513: A specific viewpoint, namely of not boycotting Israel, which would be an unlawful "constitutional condition". Critics state that many anti-BDS laws are not specific enough in what activities they target. Timothy Cuffman cites the Arizona anti-BDS statute which defines a "boycott" as "engaging in a refusal to deal, terminating business activities or performing other actions that are intended to limit commercial relations". In his view, this definition

3364-399: A strong partisan divide on BDS; among those who had heard of BDS, 76% of Republicans opposed the movement, compared to 52% of Democrats. In a 2019 poll from Data for Progress 35% to 27% opposed anti-BDS laws. Split by party affiliation, 48% of Democrats opposed anti-BDS laws and 15% supported them; 27% of Republicans opposed anti-BDS laws and 44% supported them. 70%-80% believed boycotts were

3480-638: A victory as Argentina's national football team canceled an upcoming friendly game in Jerusalem. Anti-BDS laws With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict , many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti- BDS laws (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities . Most organized boycotts of Israel have been led by Palestinians and other Arabs with support from much of

3596-456: A vocal supporter of the two-state solution , has criticized BDS on this issue. Like Foxman, Finkelstein believes that BDS seeks to end Israel through demography, something he believes Israel will never acquiesce to. He therefore considers BDS a "silly, childish, and dishonest cult" because it does not explicitly state that its goal is to end Israel and because, according to him, that goal is unrealistic and broad public support cannot be found for

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3712-429: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ( BDS ) is a nonviolent Palestinian -led movement promoting boycotts , divestments , and economic sanctions against Israel . Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations under international law , defined as withdrawal from

3828-658: Is analogous to boycotting Israel, proponents argue. Since the Supreme Court ruled that denying access to military recruiters was not expressive conduct neither could boycotts of Israel be expressive conduct. Critics argue that the analogy does not hold because FAIR was not about boycotting and participation in a political boycott is obvious expressive conduct. Discarding Claiborne Hardware , proponents draw analogies between anti-BDS laws and anti-discrimination laws which forbid government contractors from discriminating based on gender and similar attributes. Critics argue that

3944-582: Is at best a form of negotiation between a stronger and weaker party. BDS 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. 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) representing every aspect of Palestinian civil society adopted the BDS Call. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

4060-552: Is based on Longshoremen v. Allied Int'l, Inc. , where the Supreme Court held that a trade union that refused to unload cargo from the Soviet Union in protest against the country's invasion of Afghanistan had engaged in an illegal secondary boycott . Proponents claim that this case sets a precedent since it singled out a specific country and affected parties not directly involved in the dispute, just like boycotts of Israel do. Critics view Longshoremen as irrelevant because

4176-437: Is discriminatory, most political movements using boycotts would be discriminatory. The Anti-Apartheid Movement would have had to address the suffering of people in other African countries too, to escape the charge of singling out South Africa. Critics claim that is unreasonable. The disparate impact argument complements the disparate treatment argument by stating that the boycott harms Jewish or Israeli entities, even if that

4292-412: Is in itself anti-Chinese racism." BDS demands that Israel allow the Palestinian refugees displaced in the 1948 war to return to what is now Israel. According to BDS's critics, calling for their right to return is an attempt to destroy Israel. If the refugees returned, Israel would become a Palestinian-majority state and Jewish dominance of Israel would be in jeopardy. They argue that this would undermine

4408-761: 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 believe that BDS should be viewed in a historical context of other boycotts of Israel . BDS demands that Israel end its "three forms of injustices that infringe international law and Palestinian rights" by: These demands, enshrined in

4524-471: Is not its intent. That is, the boycott is "fair in form, but discriminatory in operation". Critics argue that the disparate impact doctrine was developed with employment discrimination in mind and is not applicable to BDS and even if it was, the argument would fail. The plaintiff would have to show that the behavior has an adverse impact on Israeli or Jewish businesses. But the majority of companies targeted by BDS are not Israeli, making it difficult to argue that

4640-472: Is overly broad and extends far beyond the dictionary definition of the word "boycott". He further argues that many of the laws do not clarify whether divestment is to be considered a form of prohibited boycott or not, nor how a company could be penalized for partaking in "sanctions" as they are imposed by governments or intergovernmental entities. Proponents argue that the Tax Reform Act of 1976 and

4756-501: Is pleasant to be chased by people saying we are not good guys all the time but really it was a business decision." Since 2012, BDS has campaigned against G4S , the world's biggest security company, to get it to divest from Israel. As a result, G4S has been targeted by many BDS supporting groups, including Who Profits? , Addameer , Jews for Justice in Palestine , and Tadamon! . The campaign's first victory came in October 2011, when

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4872-700: Is prevalent in much of the Muslim world, with the most prominent example being that of the Arab League boycott of Israel , which was first imposed in 1945 as part of an effort to weaken the Yishuv by targeting the Jewish economy in the British Mandate for Palestine . Israel's government has faced longstanding criticism of its conduct in the Palestinian territories it has occupied since 1967 . In July 2024,

4988-577: Is that they first commit to BDS's principles. They believe that dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians can convince Jewish Israelis that BDS's demands are just. Barghouti contends that the "peace industry", the many dialogue initiatives launched in the 1990s in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords , has not helped the Palestinians at all because they are based on the idea that the conflict is between two equals, rather than about one group oppressing another. He believes that dialogue needs to be based on freedom, equality, democracy, and ending injustice, or else it

5104-666: Is the principal unsanctioned foreign boycott that U.S. persons must be concerned with today." In 2019, one of the co-sponsors to the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Marco Rubio , introduced the Combating BDS Act ( S. 1 ) to the 116th session of Congress in a package of three other bills related to the Middle East where it passed the Senate without much debate. The act has so far not been taken up in

5220-421: Is to be taken against whoever tries to boycott Israel. As of 2020, the question of whether American anti-BDS laws are constitutional has not yet been settled in courts. Many analysts believe that sooner or later there will be a legal showdown due to the controversial nature of the laws. The debate about the laws' constitutionality focuses on two central issues: The answer to the first question has implications for

5336-540: The Export Administration Act of 1979 which penalizes individuals and companies participating in "international boycotts" establishes a precedent. Critics offer two responses; first, Claiborne Hardware was not settled in 1979 so it was not yet clear that political boycotts were protected speech; second, these acts referred to boycotts organized by foreign nations, but BDS is a grassroots initiative organized by civil society groups. Another argument

5452-636: The International Court of Justice declared in an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation was illegal and should be brought to an end as quickly as possible. Existing settlements should be evacuated and reparations paid to Palestinians who had lost land and property. The court also found that Israel was in violation of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Prevention of Racial Discrimination , which imposes

5568-742: The Israel Prison Service . 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. In June 2019, Unite , the UK's second-largest trade union, joined the boycott against HP. In January 2016, French telecom operator Orange dropped its licensing deal with its Israeli mobile operator, Partner Communications . According to BDS,

5684-489: The Israeli-occupied territories , or divesting funds from Israeli corporations. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, "BDS" for short, was formally announced in 2005, with the primary goal of pressuring Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. The Israeli government and its supporters believe that the BDS movement conforms to the definitions of anti-Semitism , most notably in applying to Israel

5800-633: 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. In 2015 Veolia sold off its final investment in Israel, a 5% stake 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

5916-682: The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 , does not target boycotts against Israel specifically, but makes it illegal to "comply with, further, or support any boycott fostered or imposed by any foreign country, against a country which is friendly to the United States" 50 U.S.C.   § 4842 and as the Office of Antiboycott Compliance notes "The Arab League boycott of Israel

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6032-773: The Ministry of Strategic Affairs , wrote an email to Ohio Governor John Kasich after signing his state's anti-BDS bill into law: "I sincerely appreciate your contribution." In 2016, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon , claimed that his government was "advancing legislation in many countries ... so that it will simply be illegal to boycott Israel." In February 2020, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted about his government's lobbying successes: Whoever boycotts us will be boycotted… In recent years, we have promoted laws in most US states, which determine that strong action

6148-796: The Muslim world . Since the Second Intifada in particular, these efforts have primarily been coordinated at an international level by the Palestinian-led BDS movement ("Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions"), which seeks to mount as much economic pressure on Israel as possible until the Israeli government allows an independent Palestinian state to be established. Anti-BDS laws are designed to make it difficult for anti-Israel people and organizations to participate in boycotts; anti-BDS legal resolutions are symbolic and non-binding parliamentary condemnations, either of boycotts of Israel or of

6264-642: The U.S. Congress has considered anti-boycott legislation in reaction to the BDS movement. The U.S. Senate passed S.1, which contained anti-boycott provisions, on January 28, 2019, by a vote of 74–19. The  U.S. House  passed a resolution condemning the boycott of Israel on July 24, 2019, by a vote of 398–17. Senators Marco Rubio ( R-FL ),  Bill Cassidy ( R-LA ), Mike Braun ( R-IN ), Rick Scott ( R-FL ), Bill Hagerty ( R-TN ), and Steve Daines ( R-MT ) reintroduced the Combating BDS Act of 2023. So far, no federal law has been adopted. There has been debate over whether

6380-560: 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. BDS is modeled after the Anti-Apartheid Movement . BDS supporters see it as

6496-500: The BDS movement itself. Generally, such condemnations accuse BDS of closeted antisemitism , charging it with pushing a double standard and lobbying for the de-legitimization of Israeli sovereignty , and are often followed by laws targeting boycotts of Israel. Proponents of anti-BDS laws claim that BDS is a form of antisemitism, and so such laws legislate against hate speech . Opponents claim that Israel's supporters are engaging in lawfare by lobbying for anti-BDS laws that infringe upon

6612-418: The BDS's three demands. BDS calls it "co-existence" and argues that it feeds complacency and privileges the oppressor at the expense of the oppressed. Instead, BDS encourages "co-resistance", where "anti-colonial Jewish Israelis" and Palestinians come together to fight against the injustices afflicting the Palestinians. BDS denounces dialogue projects bringing Palestinians and Israelis together without addressing

6728-408: The BNC, but supporters are free to choose targets that suit them. The BNC encourages supporters to select targets based on their complicity in Israel's human rights violations, potential for cross-movement solidarity, media appeal, and likelihood of success. It also emphasizes the importance of creating campaigns and events that connect with issues of concern in their own communities. In addition to

6844-548: The Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court . It says that while there are differences between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa, such as Israel's lack of explicit racial segregation laws, 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

6960-490: The Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed the motion for a preliminary injunction on January 23, 2019. It argued that Act 710 only "concerns a contractor's purchasing activities with respect to Israel" and that it does not prevent criticism of Israel or even calls to boycott Israel. It further asserted that purchasing activities are "neither speech nor inherently expressive conduct". The Court therefore concluded that

7076-728: The First Amendment did not protect the paper's refusal to promise to not boycott Israel. In February 2019, the paper represented by ACLU appealed the decision to United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit . In April 2019, the Institute for Free Speech and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education filed an amicus brief arguing that Act 710 is unconstitutional. Reporters Committee for Freedom of

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7192-589: The Foreign Affairs Committee. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act ( H.R. 1697 ; S. 720 ) was introduced to the House and Senate by two identical bills on in March 2017 by Roskam and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin respectively. After causing a great deal of debate over its implications on free speech and the act eventually died in Congress. The Anti-Boycott Act of 2018, passed as part of

7308-540: The House. The House of Representatives passed a bill in July 2019 condemning the BDS movement, with a bipartisan vote of 398–17, with five abstentions. As of 2020, a handful of plaintiffs have sued states with anti-BDS laws charging that they violate their First Amendment rights, with decisions being split. In 2017, Mikkel Jordahl, who ran his own law firm and contracted with the State of Arizona, refused to certify that he

7424-490: 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 some forms of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, which it argues are counterproductive. According to BDS, "all forms of international intervention and peace-making until now have failed" and so

7540-445: The Israeli government. BDS supporters contend that liberal Zionists are more concerned with preserving Israel as a "Jewish state" than with human rights. Barghouti states that by denying the Palestinian refugees right of return simply because they are not Jewish, liberal Zionists adhere to the same Zionist racist principles that treat the Palestinians as a "demographic threat" to be dealt with in order to maintain Israel's character as

7656-516: The Israeli government. In 2015, in response to South Carolina's anti-BDS law, IAF announced that it had drafted a model act , combining the anti-BDS bills in South Carolina and Illinois. A model act is a "template bill" that can be enacted in many legislatures with little or no modification. IAF also announced that 18 more states were "committed to introducing" similar legislation in their states. The Copy, Paste, Legislate investigation into

7772-580: The Jewish people's right to self-determination and thus calling for it is a form of antisemitism. Former Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman has called it "the destruction of the Jewish state through demography." Nadia Abu el-Haj has written that, indeed, BDS supporters believe that "the Israeli state has no right to continue exist as a racial state that builds the distinction between Jew and non-Jew into its citizenship laws, its legal regimes, its education system, its economy, and its military and policing tactics." BDS supporters further note that

7888-477: The Kansas state legislature amended the law so that it would not affect Koontz and ACLU that had represented Koontz dropped the case. The weekly newspaper Arkansas Times had for two years published over 83 paid advertisements on a contractual basis for University of Arkansas – Pulaski Technical College . In October 2018, before renewing the advertising contract, the university asked the paper to certify that it

8004-415: The Palestinian liberation movement has always rejected the idea that Israel has a right to exist as a racial state. While BDS deliberately refrains from advocating any particular political outcome, such as a one-state or two-state solution, Barghouti argues that a Jewish state in historical Palestine contravenes the Palestinians' rights: A Jewish state in Palestine in any shape or form cannot but contravene

8120-426: 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

8236-669: The Press and 15 news media organizations filed another one in support of the paper, while StandWithUs , Agudath Israel of America , and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America filed one in support of the State. In February 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the decision of the lower court and determined that the Arkansas law violated the First Amendment. On June 22, 2022,

8352-721: The U.S. as of 2018. The left-wing activist organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) advocates for BDS among American Jewry. In addition to these, political parties, trade unions and other NGOs have endorsed the BDS Call. 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 boycott are selected by

8468-555: The United States has made opposing BDS one of its top priorities. Since 2015, the Israeli government has spent millions of dollars to promote the view that BDS is antisemitic and have it legally banned in foreign countries. Multiple countries and the majority of U.S. states have passed anti-BDS laws . Many authors trace BDS's origins to the NGO Forum at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in South Africa (Durban I). At

8584-421: The United States have passed anti-BDS legislation in recent years. I plan on asking each of them to enforce these laws against Ben & Jerry's", and called the decision "a shameful capitulation to antisemitism, BDS and everything bad in the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse". Since November 2008, BDS has campaigned against the multinational French conglomerates Veolia and Alstom for their involvement in

8700-584: 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 sees itself as a movement for all Palestinians, whether they live in the diaspora or in historical Palestine. 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

8816-797: The Women's Boat to Gaza have included Sweden Ship to Gaza , Norway Ship to Gaza , Canadian Boat to Gaza , the Italian Freedom Flotilla , the South African Palestine Solidarity Alliance , the Spanish Rumbo a Gaza , International Committee to Break the Siege of Gaza , US Boat to Gaza , the New Zealand-based Kia Ora Gaza , and Free Gaza Australia . Official website This activism -related article

8932-496: The analogy is inappropriate because, for example, an employer refusing to hire gay people is neither a political act nor expressive conduct. Even if a boycott has a discriminatory component, which the boycott ruled on in Claiborne Hardware had, it is still protected speech, critics assert. Another objection to Claiborne Hardware is that the case was about the lawfulness of boycotts, but anti-BDS laws merely withdraw

9048-403: The answer to the latter; if the boycotts of Israel are discriminatory, the government could be free to enact laws against them. In the following sections, those who claim that anti-BDS laws are constitutional are referred to as "proponents" and those that claim that they aren't are referred to as "critics". Proponents argue that boycotts of Israel are a form of discrimination because they target

9164-409: The basic rights of the indigenous Palestinian population and perpetuate a system of racial discrimination that ought to be opposed categorically. Just as we would oppose a "Muslim state" or a "Christian state" or any kind of exclusionary state, definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept

9280-481: The boycott harms such entities. Even if Jewish or Israeli business were disproportionately impacted by BDS' boycott, critics argue that BDS could defend its boycott as a "business necessity" because its goal, ending Israel's human rights violations, is legitimate. An objection could be that BDS should use other methods that does not affect third parties. But given the failure of the many political initiatives in ending Israel's human rights violations, BDS could argue that

9396-532: The boycott. Boycott from Within often uses creative performances to display its support for the boycott and the research group Who Profits supplies BDS with information about companies complicit in the Israeli occupation. On campuses in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand, the student organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) supports BDS. According to the American coordinating body National Students for Justice in Palestine, it had about 200 chapters in

9512-465: The campaigns listed in this section, a number of local campaigns have been created by BDS-affiliated groups and endorsed by the movement, including Code Pink 's Stolen Beauty campaign launched in 2009 against Israeli cosmetics manufacturer Ahava , an Australian campaign against Max Brenner , whose parent company, the Strauss Group , sent care packages to Israeli soldiers, and a campaign by

9628-523: The case was about labor law and such boycotts have consistently been analyzed differently from boycotts by civil rights groups. The Protect Academic Freedom Act ( H.R. 1409 ) was introduced to the 113th session of Congress by Republican Representative Peter Roskam on February 6, 2014. The bill would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 making institutions of higher education ineligible from federal funding if they participated in

9744-555: The deal was the result of its six-year campaign by unions and activists in France, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. 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

9860-557: The decision was pending, the certification requirement was amended by bill SB 1167 so that Jordahl and his law firm would be exempted. The appeals court therefore found that the claim was now moot . In May 2017, public school educator Esther Koontz began a personal boycott against Israeli businesses. On July 10, 2017, Koontz was to begin to serve as a teacher trainer implemented by the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE). The program director asked Koontz to sign

9976-415: The denial of the Palestinian refugees' right of return, the occupation of the Palestinian territories, and discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel. The declaration recommended comprehensive sanctions and embargoes against Israel as the remedy. In March 2002, while the Israeli army reoccupied all major Palestinian cities and towns and imposed curfews, a group of prominent Palestinian scholars published

10092-589: The end of sales of ice cream in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank: "Although Ben & Jerry's will no longer be sold in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian territories], we will stay in Israel through a different arrangement". Ben & Jerry's Independent Board of Directors complained that the decision had been made by the CEO and Unilever without their approval. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, "Over 30 states in

10208-737: The formation of the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in April 2004. Colin Shindler argues that the Oslo peace process 's failure created a political void that allowed what had been a marginal rejectionist attitude to Israel to enter the European far-left mainstream in the form of proposals for a boycott. Rafeef Ziadah also attributes BDS to the peace process's failure. She argues that BDS represents

10324-401: The forum, Palestinian activists met with anti-apartheid veterans who identified parallels between Israel and apartheid South Africa and recommended campaigns like those they had used to defeat apartheid. The forum adopted a document that contained many ideas that would later reappear in the 2005 BDS Call; Israel was proclaimed an apartheid state that engaged in human rights violations through

10440-462: The government. Whether the doctrine of "unconstitutional conditions" applies to situations where no existing business relationship exists has not been addressed by the Supreme Court. Critics also cite USAID v. Alliance for Open Society (2013) where the Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot require organizations to profess to a specific viewpoint as a condition for government funding. But anti-BDS laws coerce contractors bidding to profess to

10556-536: The group Vermonters for Justice in Palestine (VTJP, previously known as Vermonters for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine) against ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry over its sales of ice cream in Israeli settlements. In June 2021, VTJP called on Ben & Jerry's to "end complicity in Israel's occupation and abuses of Palestinian human rights." VTJP describes itself as "a strong supporter of the...[BDS] campaign". On 19 July 2021, Ben & Jerry's CEO announced

10672-477: The international community should impose punitive measures, such as broad boycotts and divestment initiatives, against Israel, like those against South Africa during apartheid . 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 antisemitism and Islamophobia. More generally, BDS frames itself as part of

10788-694: The larger BDS movement. The U.S. arm of PACBI, the United States Association for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), was founded in 2009. The global BDS movement is by design highly decentralized and independent. This has allowed thousands of organizations and groups to become part of it, some of which are the BNC's main partners. In Israel, some more established radical groups, such as Women in Black , ICAHD , AIC , and New Profile , initially issued statements supporting

10904-581: The laws violate the right to free speech and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) have challenged many of them in court cases. According to University of Maryland 's Critical Issues Poll from October 2019, a majority of Americans oppose anti-BDS laws; 72% opposed laws penalizing people who boycott Israel and 22% supported such laws. The poll also found

11020-523: The monitoring of pro-BDS activities of foreign companies that trade on American stock exchanges and by prohibiting American courts from "enforcing rulings made by foreign courts against American companies solely for conducting business in Israel". However, the bill did not impose penalties for supporting BDS. Roskam justified the bill, which could affect negotiations for the Transatlantic Free Trade Area , by claiming that there were

11136-446: The occupied territories. BDS runs a boycott campaign against the multinational information technology company Hewlett-Packard 's two successors, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise , which it says are complicit in "Israel's occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid regime". According to the campaign, HP supplies Israel with a biometric ID card system used to restrict Palestinians' freedom of movement and provides servers for

11252-404: The oppressed comes to believe that the oppressor's reality is the only reality and that the oppression is a fact of life. BDS opposes normalization as a means to resist oppression. Normalization, BDS says, can arise when Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories meet without the Israeli side acknowledging the fundamental injustices Israel inflicts on the Palestinians, corresponding to

11368-554: The proliferation of model acts in U.S. state politics revealed that, in addition to IAF, AIPAC , the Israel Action Network , and local Jewish Federations were directly involved in lobbying for anti-BDS laws. In three states, Arizona, California, and Nevada, the lobbying efforts were spearheaded by Dillon Hosier, a lobbyist working for Adam Milstein 's Israeli-American Council . Israeli officials congratulated some states after enacting anti-BDS bills. Gilad Erdan of

11484-450: The return of the refugees. Still, he believes that BDS's tactics, boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, are correct. BDS criticizes liberal Zionists who oppose the occupation but also the right of return for the Palestinian refugees. According to liberal Zionists, both right-wing Zionists and BDS risk "destroying Israel", defined as turning Israel into a Palestinian-majority state, BDS by demanding equal citizenship for Arab-Palestinians and

11600-446: The right of return of the Palestinian refugees, and right-wing Zionists by insisting on building more settlements, eventually making a two-state solution impossible. With the two-state solution off the table, Israel would either have to grant citizenship to the Palestinians living under occupation, thus destroying Israel, or become an apartheid state. Liberal Zionists find apartheid repugnant and oppose apartheid in Israel, so they propose

11716-561: The right to free speech, and conflating anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The specific provisions of anti-BDS laws vary widely. Legislation, to any degree, against boycotts of Israel is prevalent in much of the Western world , and especially in the United States , which has been Israel's closest ally on the international stage since the 1960s . Conversely, legislation promoting or enforcing boycotts of Israel

11832-665: The secretariat handles day-to-day decision making. Mahmoud Nawajaa serves as the BNC's General Coordinator and Alys Samson Estapé as the Europe Coordinator. 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. PACBI led the campaign for the academic and cultural boycotts of Israel. It has since been integrated into

11948-821: The situation in Gaza and the West Bank is "worse" than apartheid. Eric Goldstein, acting executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch , which neither supports nor condemns a boycott, argues that the Biden administration will probably not counter the Trump administration's attempt to label BDS antisemitic. He considers the movement maligned. In his view, "To campaign or boycott solely on behalf of Palestinians under Israeli rule no more constitutes anti-Semitism than doing so on behalf of Tibetans in China

12064-404: The slogan of ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state. Since OneVoice concerns itself with neither Israeli apartheid nor Palestinian refugees' rights, BDS concludes that it serves to normalize oppression and injustice. Critics of "anti-normalization" rhetorically ask how BDS is supposed to win over the hearts and minds of unconvinced Jewish Israelis if a precondition for dialogue

12180-443: The struggle for Palestinian rights. Such projects, it asserts, "serve to privilege oppressive co-existence at the cost of co-resistance" regardless of their intentions. It also denounces projects that portray the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians as symmetrical. One example of a project BDS denounces is OneVoice , a joint Palestinian-Israeli youth-oriented organization that brings Israelis and Palestinians together under

12296-831: The student council of the Edinburgh University Students' Association adopted a motion to ban G4S from campus. In April 2012 the European Parliament declined to renew its contract with G4S, citing G4S's involvement in violations of international law. In 2014 the Gates Foundation sold its $ 170 million stake in G4S, a move BDS activists attributed to their campaign. The same year activists thanked officials in Durham County, North Carolina , for terminating its contract with G4S, though it

12412-408: The summer. In August, Palestinian organizations in the occupied territories issued a call for a comprehensive boycott of Israel. The majority of the statements recalled the declarations made at the NGO Forum the year before. In October 2003, a group of Palestinian intellectuals called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Attempts to coordinate the boycotts in a more structured way led to

12528-488: The world. They argue that this focus is driven by animosity towards Jews or Israelis and that it is circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent. They refer to the Working Definition of Antisemitism which gives "Applying double standards by requiring of it [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation" as an example of antisemitism. The claim, which relies on the but-for test ,

12644-505: Was covered by The New York Times , Rolling Stone , and Al-Jazeera . The activists organized flash mobs, die-ins , and placed "Boycott Israeli Apartheid"-stickers on Woolworths' Israeli merchandise, all of which they published on social media. Consumers were encouraged to write to the company's store managers questioning the stocking of Israeli goods. The campaign ended in mid-2016 when Woolworth informed its annual general meeting that it would no longer purchase Israeli products from

12760-617: Was crewed by thirteen volunteers with several members alternating at different legs of the voyage. The Zaytouna-Oliva was the sole ship in the Women's Boat to Gaza expedition. The Oliva was named after a civil protection boat that the Italian journalist Vittorio Arrigoni sailed in prior to his murder by a Palestinian militant group in Gaza in 2011. A second ship called the Amal-Hope was originally due to participate but pulled out subsequently. Organizations and campaigns participating in

12876-480: Was established at the first Palestinian BDS conference in Ramallah in November 2007 and in 2008 it became BDS's coordinating body. All BNC members are Palestinian organizations. As of 2020, it has 29 members. The BNC includes a general assembly with representatives from every BNC member, and an 11-seat secretariat elected every two years that governs the BNC. The general assembly meets about every third month while

12992-448: Was likely unconstitutional and that Kansas therefore must not enforce the law. The court declared that Koontz' conduct was "inherently expressive" because it was easily associated "with the message that the boycotters believe Israel should improve its treatment of Palestinians". The court further concluded that forcing Koontz "to disown her boycott is akin to forcing plaintiff to accommodate Kansas's message of support for Israel". In 2018

13108-582: Was not clear that BDS's campaign was the cause. In February 2016, the international restaurant chain Crepes & Waffles terminated its security transport contracts with G4S. G4S sold off its Israeli subsidiary G4S Israel in 2016, but BDS continues to campaign against G4S because it maintains a 50% stake in Policity, an Israeli police training center with presence inside Israeli prisons where thousands of Palestinians are detained. BDS South Africa undertook

13224-537: Was not participating in boycotts of Israel. Consequently, the state refused to pay him. Jordahl sued the state claiming that his First Amendment rights had been violated. On September 27, 2018, the Arizona district court ruled in his favor, granting him a preliminary injunction , preventing the state from enforcing the bill's certification requirement. The court ruled that Arizona's anti-BDS laws were applied to politically motivated actions and therefore did not regulate only commercial speech. The state appealed. While

13340-426: Was not, and would not, engage in boycotts against Israel. The paper had supplied such certifications before, but this time the paper's publisher and chief executive officer Alan Leveritt, refused. The paper brought the matter to trial and challenged the constitutionality of Act 710, claiming that it violated the paper's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and requested a preliminary injunction. The District Court for

13456-431: Was taken by the Arkansas district court that ruled on Arkansas Times LP v. Mark Waldrip . It argued that Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, Inc. ( FAIR ) was the controlling case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could withhold funds from universities for refusing to give military recruiters access to school resources. Universities denying access to military recruiters

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