Beyond Ceasefire: The Case of Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement

 

by: Raditya Darningtyas

This article aims to make the case on why ceasefire doesn’t equal to peace because the only true form of peace for the Palestinian needs to also address and compensate for the indirect and structural violence experienced daily the the Palestinians. The Palestinian BDS movement, along with other nonviolent resistance, is a strategic way to fight for justice and positive peace in Palestine. 

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After days of relentless Israeli bombing and rockets launched into Israel by Hamas, a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza Strip was finally announced on Friday (May 24^th 2021). However, the tensions remain high in occupied East Jerusalem after the Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and fired tear gas at Palestinians after Friday prayers— only hours after the agreement.

While many were momentarily relieved for the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, this agreement alone doesn’t necessarily translate into peace for all Palestinians. The ceasefire only ends — for now— the Israeli assault and bombardment, not the violence. The ceasefire doesn’t end Israeli occupation in West Bank including their Apartheid regimes and colonization, Israeli blockade of Gaza, and their refusal to comply with International Law in allowing Palestinians refugees their right to return.

Borrowing the concept of positive and negative peace introduced by Johan Galtung (1964), the absence of direct violence like assault and warfare in Palestine would only lead to what he called as the negative peace. Galtung expanded the concepts of peace to also include other forms of indirect violence or the structural violence such as poverty, hunger, discrimination, Apartheid, and other forms of social injustices. The absence of both direct and indirect violence to achieve the integration of human society is what Galtung described as the positive peace.

In order to truly establish (positive) peace in Palestine, further efforts to address and compensate for the indirect and structural violence experienced daily by the Palestinians also need to be done. One of the ways to do that is by also supporting and organizing various movements and campaigns of the Palestinians struggle using tools of nonviolent actions such as the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement.

The BDS movement—that of a decentralised, grassroots, network-based border-crossing social movement centred on political tactics of BDS—is unique in the history of Palestinian struggle because it has managed to unite the three main segments of Palestinian people[1] and it has successfully scaled up and transitioned its repertoire of contentions from domestic to a transnational social movement. In this new form of transnational social movement, Israel’s power is confronted across the globe in various venues by a range of individuals with various backgrounds (retirees, students, faith-based activist, etc) (Hallward 2013).

In this article, I will try to explain why the Palestinian BDS movement, as the latest development in Palestinian global nonviolent struggle, is worthy of our supports (as global citizen of conscience) as a strategic way to fight for justice and realizing the positive peace in Palestine.

-       The Structural Violence in Palestine

Efforts toward a ceasefire and other future truce in Palestine would not guarantee the end of suffering and the realization of positive peace for numerous Palestinians living in many parts of Palestinian territories — including for the Palestinians living in Gaza, which has been under a severely tightened air, sea and land blockade since 2007 (McCarthy 2008).

After the al-Nakba[2] and the 1967 war, Israel is left in control of two territories which are home to large Palestinian population; the West Bank which is technically controlled by the Palestinian Authority and is under Israeli occupation and the Gaza Strip is controlled by an Islamist Party Hamas and is under Israeli blockade.

Israeli occupation in the West Bank translates into various discriminatory policies and institutionalized racism. For instance, the enforcement of Israeli security restriction on Palestinian movement and activities. Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) often set up cement barricades, establish the Israeli-only road system, checkpoints, and closures, prohibiting Palestinians from entering the neighborhoods while armed settlers roam its streets (Garbett 2021).

Racist law such as special work permit for Palestinian workers (Haas 2019), and the amendment to the Israeli Citizenship Act or commonly known as the “loyalty oath,” which stated that “non-Jews” applying for Israeli citizenship would have to pledge allegiance to Israel “as a Jewish democratic state” also structurally deprive Palestinians citizens of Israel of their basic rights (Barghouti 2011).

Moreover, forced evictions of Palestinians from their own lands and home by the Israeli settler is also a daily reality for Palestinians (Beauchamp 2018), including the latest one in Sheikh Jarrah which has sparked nationwide uprisings across the OPT/Occupied Palestine Territories (Husseini 2021). Moreover, the bombing of the press and medias office in the Gaza Strip has also sparked global outcry and solidarity with the Palestinians (Febrina 2021).

The abovementioned development has restored global solidarity as well as galvanized Palestinian unity across political and geographic divide: (a) the Palestinians living in the OPT; (b) the Palestinian citizens of Israel; and (c) the Palestinian refugees living outside of the OPT.

-       The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement

In response to the occupation and the abovementioned violence, the Palestinians have repeatedly waged their struggle non-violently, using various nonviolent repertoires including protest and persuasion such as public prayers, vigils, or marches; noncooperation such as boycott and refusal to pay taxes; and intervention such as sit-ins and nonviolent raid (Sharp 1973). These nonviolent tactics were collectively demonstrated during the al-Quds uprising in the 1920s, the 1936 revolt, the First Intifada that began in 1987 and the Second Intifada that started in 2000 (Qumsiyeh 2011).

A portion of these activities are considered ‘everyday resistance’—routine acts of non-acceptance or noncompliance, such as refusing to apply to the Israeli authorities for permission to travel, or continuing to work or go to school in difficult conditions. However none of those early attempts were able to last long enough (Hallward 2013) or effectively organized since Palestinians are divided among those who live in the West Bank, Gaza and within Israeli territory, making sustaining a unified movement difficult especially after the founding of Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964 when armed struggle gained more popularity (Giacaman 2013). The BDS movement is unique since it has managed to unify all segments of the Palestinian people to join its call.

The BDS movement was heavily inspired by the success of South African BDS movement in fighting against apartheid. When the BDS movement was founded in July 9^th 2005, it started out as a call of solidarity to international society in an open statement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israeli government. The statement was made by 171 civil society organizations throughout Palestine and it was able to unite Palestinians living in three separate areas, grow, and even become a transnational movement with significance influence and popularity in several countries (Call for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel 2005). Although local organising and the use of boycotts in opposing Israel has undeniably historic roots, making the BDS as a continuation of earlier attempts at pressuring Israel to change its policies toward the Palestinians, the scale and level of success obtained by BDS is unprecedented.

The BDS Call, anchored in international law and universal principles of human rights, underlining the fact that for the Palestinian people to exercise its right to self-determination, demands that Israel must end its three forms of injustice that infringe international law and Palestinian rights by:

1.     ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands [occupied in 1967] and dismantling the wall;

2.     recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality;

3.     respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in UN Resolution 194 (Barghouti 2011).

The BDS call has gained support from various institutions such as academic institution and association, churches, unions, even several city councils by working to gain traction in the economic, academic, and cultural spheres. A wide range of college campuses and Churches in the United States have adopted the call, prompting various retaliation campaigns to kill the BDS (mostly accusing BDS of anti-Semitism) such as social media censorship and anti-boycott legislations in several States in the US by Israeli government and lobbyists (Holmes 2020).

-       On Why We Should Support the BDS Movement

Aside from attacks by the supporters of the Israeli government, the BDS also receive some critics from fellow Palestinian supporters who are afraid that the movement would also hurt the Palestinian workers. An organizer with the Palestinian New Federation of Trade Unions, Manal Shqair, argues why even workers whose employers are subject to boycotts support BDS because the dismantling of the settlement enterprise means that the Palestinians will be able to utilize their land and natural resources. This means, it will put an end to the exploitation of Palestinian workers by their Israeli employers (Thier and Awad 2021).

Another scepticism against the BDS falls upon its effectiveness. Despite still being small-scale in several countries such as the US and other western countries, there are many instances where BDS is able to mess corporate investments in apartheid and turn public opinion on Israel[3]. Despite persistent attacks and smear campaigns by the Israeli government, the BDS movement has managed to launch several campaigns.

One of the impacts of BDS activities are the exclusion of Veolia, French transnational company, from the investment universe because of its involvement in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land (Nieuwhof and Lherm 2007). Another example is the Olympia Food Co-op (OFC) Boycott where its board members from in Washington State voted on July 15, 2010 to boycott Israeli-made products in their two grocery stores, and with that action became the first US grocery store to de-shelve Israeli goods (Hallward 2013).

Framing the Palestinian cause as part of the progressive and leftist movement in the US (e.g. Black Lives Matter) and the global fight against colonialism and apartheid has also become the latest strategy in influencing discourse around the Palestinian causes. Various social media campaigns from Palestinian organizations such as the Institute of Middle East Understanding (IMEU), the Adalah Justice Project, and the KEY48 have been working to deconstruct the old notion of Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case of oppression and ethnic cleansing by the Apartheid, right-wing regime of Israel. 

In order to assess the significance of the BDS movement, we should take a look the retaliation it has prompted from the Israeli government and its partners. They have spent great deal of their financial and political resources to suppressing the movements by persecuting and threatens anyone who engage in BDS campaigns. After countless resistance from the activists in the US, anti-boycott laws targeting Palestine advocacy have been passed in thirty states (Holmes 2020). In 2016, New York state governor, Andrew Cuomo has also signed an executive order to create a public register of organizations affiliated with the boycotts Israel movement and forbid all state agencies under his authority from having financial ties to BDS affiliated organizations.

The response to BDS indicates significant impact the movement could have on the capital flow to Israel. Moreover, Israeli government usually committed longer bombardments in the past (Stephan 2009). However, this time the ceasefire agreement was reached in eleven days. This is due in part to the pressure, increasing scrutiny, and campaigns by the Palestinian activists.

On April 2021, the Human Rights Watch has also released a report charging Israel with apartheid and crimes against humanity (HRW 2021) that further legitimize the use of BDS to fight against the structural violence suffered by Palestinians. The BDS movement should capitalize this momentum to further expand their call and research on which institutions or companies the international community should boycott or divest from.

The BDS methods work. It has worked for the South African in the past and it should work for the Palestinians in the near future. Boycotting and organizing divestment campaign are doable for me and you, as ordinary civilians living in various parts of the world. It is time for us, the global citizens of conscience, to not only fulfil our moral responsibility to fight against injustice and crime against humanity, but also keep putting the materials cost in a quest to held the Israeli government accountable.

 

References

Barghouti, Omar. 2011. BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions : the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Chicago: Haymarket Book.

BDS, Palestinian. 2005. BDSmovement. Accessed May 11, 2021. https://bdsmovement.net/impact.

Beauchamp, Zack. 2018. What are Israel and Palestine? Why are they fighting? May 14. Accessed February 1, 2019. https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080002/israel-palestine-conflict-basics.

Febrina. 2021. Alliance of Independent Journalist. May 21. Accessed May 22, 2021. https://aji.or.id/read/press-release/1222/aji-indonesia-condemns-israeli-bombardment-of-media-offices-censorship-attempts.html.

Galtung, Johan. 1964. "An Editorial." Journal of Peace Research (1) 1-4.

Garbett, Lucy. 2021. The Guardian. May 17. Accessed May 22, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/17/palestinians-sheikh-jarrah-jerusalem-city-identity.

Giacaman, Faris. 2013. "Political Representation and Armed Struggle." Journal of Palestine Studies 24-40.

Haas, Amira. 2019. Haaretz. October 23. Accessed May 22, 2021. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-every-third-palestinian-worker-in-israel-is-forced-to-buy-a-work-permit-1.8016313.

Hallward, Maria Carter. 2013. Transnational Activism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. New York: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN.

Holmes, Karen. 2020. Jacobin. June 10. Accessed May 22, 2021. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/boycott-divestment-sanctions-movement-israel-palestine.

HRW. 2021. A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. Human Rights Watch.

Husseini, Ibrahim. 2021. Al Jazeera. May 21. Accessed May 22, 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/11/sheikh-jarrah-residents-speak-out-on-israels-forced-expulsions.

McCarthy, Rory. 2008. The Guardian. December 30. Accessed May 22, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/30/israelandthepalestinians-middleeast.

Qumsiyeh, M. 2011. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment. London: Pluto Press.

Sharp, Gene. 1973. The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973); . Boston: Porter Sargent.

Stephan, Maria J. 2009. Civilian Jihad : Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Thier, Daphne, and Sumaya Awad. 2021. Jacobin. May 5. Accessed May 22, 2021. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/05/boycott-divestment-sanctions-bds-israel-occupation-palestine.

 

 

 

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[1] The Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and the Palestinian refugees living in other states.

[2] Al-Nakba (the Catastrophe) of 1948, where almost a million Palestinians were dispossessed and displaced from their land by the violent creation of the Israeli state.

[3] Other success stories as well as list of targeted companies to boycott are published on the BDS website which is maintained by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the coalition of Palestinian organisations that leads and supports the BDS movement and by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a BNC member organisation (BDS 2005). For further information: https://bdsmovement.net/impact