Can the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement Help Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

“I have supported this movement [BDS] because it exerts pressure without violence on the State of Israel to create lasting peace for the citizens of Israel and Palestine, peace which most citizens crave…

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…

Whether used in South Africa, the US South, or India, boycotts have resulted in a transformative change that not only brought freedom and justice to the victims but also peace and reconciliation for the oppressors… I remain forever hopeful that, like the nonviolent efforts that have preceded it, the BDS movement will ultimately become a catalyst for honest peace and reconciliation for all our brothers and sisters, both Palestinian and Israeli, in the Holy Land.”

“JVP proudly endorses the Palestinian civil society call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) until Israel abides by international law. We reject the assertion that BDS is inherently anti-Semitic and defend activists who employ the full range of BDS tactics when they are demonized or wrongly accused of anti-Semitism. We believe BDS is a meaningful alternative to passivity engendered by two decades of failed peace talks, and is the most effective grassroots means for applying nonviolent pressure to change Israeli policies.”

“The BDS movement is an effective and moral way of combating the violation of human and civil rights in Palestine. It is based on the valid assumption that there is no hope for change from within Israel and about the futility of an armed struggle. It also has a successful historical precedent in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. There is no alternative.”

“BDS has played a critical role in changing the discourse on the question of Palestine after more than two decades of a fraudulent ‘peace process’ that undermined Palestinian rights and served as a fig leaf for the expansion and entrenchment of Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.

Today, Israel recognizes BDS as a ‘strategic threat’ to its entire regime of oppression for several reasons. BDS is mainstreaming the quest for the UN-stipulated but long ignored rights of the entire Palestinian people and is gradually and methodically succeeding in isolating Israel academically, culturally and, to a lesser extent, economically as well…

Israeli president Reuven Rivlin has recently characterized the academic boycott of Israel as a ‘first-rate strategic threat’ to Israel’s regime of occupation and apartheid.

The former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit is convinced that BDS has become a ‘critical’ challenge to Israel, while the former prime minister Ehud Barak admits it is reaching a ‘tipping point’…

I strongly believe that BDS provides the kind of morally-consistent and effective struggle against Israel’s system of oppression that can ‘restore the humanity of both,’ oppressors and oppressed, as the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire challenges us to do.”

“Despite the recent atrocities inflicted by Israelis on Palestinians and internationals, despite the deteriorating status of human rights experienced by Israeli citizens both Palestinian and non-Palestinian, despite the mounting despair of any chance for a change on the part of Israeli governments, Israel can no longer NOT look in the mirror the world is pushing up to its face. Israel is on the brink of change or collapse.

This choice will not be enforced at gunpoint or rocket-point; nor will it be triggered by world governments. Rather, it is the growing BDS movement, led by grassroots civilians inspired by the Palestinian civil society’s call for a comprehensive BDS against Israel (2005), that is enforcing this change-or-collapse choice on Israelis.

The BDS movement hit the bull’s eye. It managed to undermine Israel’s international status – a change of mind that finally pierced Israelis’ bubble of indifference… ‘Israel’s feeling of isolation is becoming more pronounced’ reads a headline in The Washington Post, which says it all. Indeed, it is the loss of legitimacy and positive self-image that will enforce Israel to reconsider its policies.”

“For the sake of our children, I am convinced that an international boycott is the only way to save Israel from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel.

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer…

The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe…

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.”

“In the furor that exists in the U.S. today about BDS and the right and wrong of a cultural boycott of Israel, a quote from one of my heroes, Mahatma Gandhi, has been on my mind. He prophetically said, ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’ The BDS movement is fulfilling its promise and fits Gandhi’s description. Once dismissed by many as a futile strategy that would ‘never work,’ BDS has gained much ground in recent weeks, bringing with it the expected backlash.

Divestment votes at major U.S. universities, European pension funds divesting from Israeli banks that do business with illegal Israeli settlements, and the recent high-profile parting of the ways between actor Scarlett Johansson and the global anti-poverty group Oxfam are symptoms of a growing resistance to the Israeli subjugation of the indigenous people of Palestine, and also, to the decades of occupation of land designated by the U.N. as a future state for the Palestinian people.

And with each new BDS headline, the ferocious reaction from the movement’s critics, with Netanyahu and his AIPAC fulminations in the vanguard, has risen exponentially. I think it’s safe to say BDS is in the ‘then they fight you’ stage.”

“The Palestinians are poor. They are powerless. They have no voice or influence in the halls of power…

Justice for Palestine will never come from the traditional governmental institutions or political parties that administer power… the sole mechanism left to ensure justice for Palestine is the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Sanctions brought down the apartheid regime of South Africa. And they are what will bring down the apartheid regime of Israel. BDS is nonviolent. It appeals to conscience. And it works.”