Are boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) proving effective at isolating Israel as a form of pressure to end its violations of Palestinian rights? We at the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation think so, but you don’t have to take our word for it.
Two recent articles in The Jewish Daily Forward and the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz have affirmed the power of the growing BDS movement in placing a cost on Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies.The Forward’s piece, “Survey of Campus BDS Finds Few Serious Cases,” sets out to diminish concern over the recent surge in campus BDS campaigns, but ends up making the case as well as anyone could for how and why ongoing BDS campaigns—on-campus and off—are succeeding!
The Forward’s article reassures BDS opponents that in no instance has a North American BDS campaign resulted in a campus divesting from corporations or de-shelving products. But further down, former human rights director for the American Committee on Africa reflects on the BDS movement against Apartheid South Africa: “It took a good 20 years to get to the height of the movement.” The reality is that within the first five years of the 2005 Palestinian civil society BDS call, the movement had arguably achieved more victories than the corresponding anti-Apartheid South Africa BDS movement could count in its first 15 years, especially taking into account BDS successes worldwide, particularly in Europe.
Apparently, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak agrees that the success of the BDS movement will take time, explaining in an interview with Ha’aretz:
This will not happen overnight.… It will start coming at us like a glacier, from all corners. There are people in the European Council that [sic] deal with export and import, and they are capable, without any government decision, of inflicting significant damage on the Israeli economy. We will see this taking place in academia, we will see this taking place in dockworker unions, consumer groups, and this will seep into governments.… To me, this uncontrollable process looks more dangerous than what the [Israeli] public perceives at the moment.
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