Sanctions Movement Research Articles

Obama's Legacy on Israel/Palestine

This retrospective assessment argues that despite the arrival in office in 2009 of a president who articulated the case for Palestinian rights more strongly and eloquently than any of his predecessors, U.S. official policy in the Obama years skewed heavily in favor of Israel. While a negotiated two-state resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continued to be the formal goal of the United States, Israel's defiant refusal to stop settlement expansion, the administration's determined actions to perpetuate Israeli impunity in international fora, as well as the U.S. taxpayer's hefty subsidy of the Israeli military machine all ensured that no progress could be made on that score. The author predicts that with all hopes of a negotiated two-state solution now shattered, Obama's successor will have to contend with an entirely new paradigm, thanks in no small part to the gathering momentum of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Israel and a sports boycott: Antisemitic? Anti-Zionist?

The paper identifies and summarises the debates that surround the place of Israel in international sport and assesses how that place is increasingly being contested. The long-standing conflict between Israel and Palestine has begun to manifest in the world of sport with the paper sketching the debates of those calling for, and those opposed to, sport sanctions/boycott of Israel until the ‘Palestinian Question’ is resolved. Five related tasks are addressed: first, to summarise the call for sanctions/boycott emanating from the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement. The second is to explore how this call is establishing itself in the world of sport. The responses of those opposed to any form of sanction/boycott are then considered. The confusion that surrounds the term antisemitism is addressed and the relationship between (anti-) Zionism and antisemitism unpacked. The discussion concludes with an assessment of the claim made by the Israeli state, and its supporters, that any action against the country’s participation in international sport would be an act of antisemitism. Offering a timely, integrated summary of the heated debates that surround the Israel/Palestine conflict, the paper contributes to a wider discussion on the relationship between sport and politics.

The Failure of Academic Boycotts

Academic boycotts are, in the view of this author, problematic in almost any context. Moreover, they have failed to achieve any significant political objectives beyond media attention. In the specific case of Israel-Palestine, the media coverage of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) proposals is far greater than the limited, almost insignificant, impact on the nature of academic and scientific collaboration between Israeli universities and the broader global academic community. The academic boycott attempts remain, at this stage, little more than proposals to members of a small number of scientific communities and guilds to cease all forms of collaboration with Israeli scientists and scholars, regardless of their political positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the status of the Occupation. The boycott cannot be enforced upon the members of these scientific communities and guilds, the majority of whom continue to undertake full scientific collaboration with their Israeli colleagues and research partners. The small number of proboycotters who do not participate in scientific meetings and conferences that take place in Israel, or who do not invite Israeli colleagues to participate in conferences arranged elsewhere, are far outnumbered by the many members of the international scientific community who do participate, and are more than ready to take their vacant place around the conference table or in the lecture theatre. Scientific congresses, in all fields of academic endeavor, have continued to thrive against the background of calls for a boycott and if there have been some absent participants for political reasons, it has not been noticeable. A glance at the long list of academic meetings and seminars that have taken place at Israeli universities during the past two years, or those that are planned for the coming academic year, is clear evidence of this; if there have been individuals who have decided not to participate because of their desire to practice boycott, it has passed without notice or impact upon the conference itself. Unlike the case of South Africa, where there was an almost blanket boycott in all political, economic, and social realms, this is not the case with Israel. In both Western Europe and North America, where most of the boycott proposals emanate, the major universities and, in some cases, the governments themselves, have made it adequately clear that, regardless of their own personal positions concerning the Israel-Palestine impasse, they do not support selective or discriminatory academic boycotts and, in some cases, this has even led to a strengthening of scientific ties where none existed previously. In a letter issued by the European Union Science and Research Authority, in response to a request by some scholars to boycott projects with Israel, the union expressed their views that academic boycotts were discriminatory. Since the EU will not fund any university or research consortium that practices policies of discrimination, the EU letter made it clear that they would have to rethink the funding of any such institutions, or individual scholars, that blatantly practiced boycott. This is perceived, by university principals and provosts, as being much more harmful to their own research and funding objectives than lending support to calls for a boycott, and they constantly make the point that the members of the University and College Union (UCU) speak for themselves as individuals, and do not speak in the name of the universities, who are opposed to any such action. The universities, as such, view the UCU as an organization that should exclusively focus on issues pertaining to employment, tenure, and wages and that should not involve the universities in issues relating to foreign policy and insist that any member of faculty who does declare his/her intent to practice boycott, does so on the basis of his individuality and not as a faculty member representing, or speaking on behalf of, the university to which he/she is affiliated. …

Is the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement Tainted by Anti‐Semitism?

If one disagrees with the actions of company, an organization, or country, boycotting that entity is an acceptable form of protest. Campaigns to boycott table grapes because of labor practices and Coors beer because of their antigay policies achieved their desired results. While divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign can have measurable and positive impact in certain situations, successful result is not guaranteed: witness that one can search online the name of just about any company, and the word boycott, and find campaigns waged against almost every major corporation--and almost none of them have produced any impact. For more than ten years, there has been global campaign to effect boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. This campaign has had little success, in part because, as we argue in this essay, it was born of an ideology hostile to Judaism and Jewish nationalism, and remains steeped in that hostile ideology to this day. The Palestinian people are not united behind this effort. The Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, Palestinian NGO, shows support down ten percentage points from 59 percent in March 2015 to 49 percent in August 2015 (www.jmcc.org). Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, while supporting the boycott of goods produced in West Bank settlements, has opposed of Israeli products not from those settlements. The movement was informally initiated in late August 2001 at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. An array of anti-Israel groups campaigned for language equating Zionism with racism and opposed the inclusion of language that would define anti-Semitism as form of racism. Israel, these advocates said, was an apartheid and its defensive security barrier an apartheid wall. They posited that could impact this protracted conflict in the same way as it had been effective with the South African regime. The final document from accused of genocide and apartheid. This was the opening salvo of what has become known as the BDS movement, an effort born, in effect, in the shadow of anti-Semitism, and unable to this day to shed intolerance of Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish state from its core values. The Conference's final declaration described as state that was guilty of racist crimes including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The Durban Strategy promoted a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel, the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel (1) While it is clearly not true that all proponents of are anti-Semitic, the record of the conference, and the campaign for that has unfolded, have been mired by anti-Semitic tropes and in many instances by outright anti-Semitism (ADL 2015). This essay provides several examples of and its anti-Semitic nature: the cultural case of Matisyahu in Spain; the case of attempts at by academic associations; and the case of the boycott of commercial companies, particularly Caterpillar and SodaStream. CASE STUDIES: IN CULTURAL EVENTS Matisyahu (born Matthew Paul Miller), an American Jewish (but not Israeli) reggae rapper and alternative rock musician, was targeted by members of the Movement simply because he is Jewish when he was scheduled to perform at the Rototom Sunsplash festival in Spain in August 2015. Representatives of the movement demanded that the singer release public statement stating that he endorses Palestinian state. He was the only performer of which this demand was made. When he refused, pressure to cancel his performance came from pro-BDS group in Valencia and the performance was initially cancelled. Spain's government and the European Jewish Congress condemned the group's action and the decision of the concert promoters. …

Building ties across the Green Line: the Palestinian 15 March youth movement in Israel and occupied Palestinian territory in 2011

In 2011 Palestinian youth joined together across the Green Line, demonstrating grassroots solidarity and a challenge to the elite consensus in favour of the two-state Oslo process. The movement drew inspiration from the concurrent Arab Spring and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, organising joint demonstrations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. However, the movement struggled to develop as a result of challenges regarding its objectives, strategy and representation, and of external threats from Israel and Palestinian political elites.

The Academic Freedom of Social Movement

The Academic Freedom of Social Movement Junaid Rana (bio) Hallowed terms like “democracy,” “freedom,” “values,” and “dialogue” or “free exchange,” even “morality,” are employed in unexpected ways and used to mask sheer irrationality. The righteous haze that surrounds such figurative potential blinds us to the literal violence before our eyes. When public discourse threatens to become illegal, what responsibilities do teachers have to speak about actions that some consider mere “ideology”? —Colin Dayan, “The Boycott Effect”1 Steven was in Urbana to give a book talk on his recently published Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom and wanted to see the campus.2 I was immediately nonplussed. “Really, you want a campus tour?” I responded. And then it quickly dawned on me, and I had to smile. Was this a subversive act? This was a public common, or so I’d been made to believe. It crossed my mind that walking on campus grounds might be interpreted as trespassing. Was a faculty member allowed to escort a colleague with a pending lawsuit against the university across campus? It didn’t matter. We did it anyway. I recalled how over a year earlier journalist Ali Abunimah was asked by campus police during that fateful Board of Trustees meeting if he was Professor Salaita.3 It was as if the officers were shown a picture of a brown guy with a shaved head the morning before and told to escort him off the premises should he appear. Earlier that afternoon Steven and I had been asked if we were brothers. In my head I said “brothers-in-arms.” And here we were taking a lap on the main quad. This most ordinary of things, the campus walking tour, suddenly felt exciting. I started to feel it around me. I’ve walked this quad hundreds of times and no one ever pays attention. Never have I noticed students looking at me, much less being the center of attention. That day, alongside Steven, there were a lot of double takes, some smiles, and the usual business of students enjoying the beautiful weather. As we circumambulated, I pointed out the spot [End Page 111] where the Student for Justice in Palestine apartheid wall in 2012 elicited the great headline: “‘Tear down this wall’ Hillel tells … Israel? (No, University of Illinois).”4 We then passed the north end of the quad, where over a year earlier in the damp, brisk air on September 11 a large protest denounced the administration and board for the firing of Professor Steven Salaita. There were many ironies on this campus walk. Here we were presumed lawbreakers, rebels, outlaws, even if for a few minutes. Or to some, perhaps, we were showing our true character. Engaging—as scholars are often wont to do—even against the odds. Steven ended our tour with the centerpiece of campus tourism: a selfie with Foellinger Auditorium, the image often used to represent the University of Illinois. In January 2014, almost two years earlier, I was on my way to Palestine for the second time in my life. I was part of the North American Academic and Labor delegation traveling to meet with members of Palestinian civil society. It was a demanding itinerary with the intention of learning from as many as possible, meeting with scholars, researchers, and organizations involved in a broad spectrum of activity. Arriving in Amman, Jordan, from Lebanon, I had just attended a conference at the American University in Beirut. At the conference there was a buzz over the growing intellectual interest in Palestine. The unprecedented growth of academic associations in the United States that had passed resolutions to join the academic boycott of Israel in response to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement was also creating an openness of academic inquiry and participation with the question of Palestine.5 Boycott is engagement, after all. The American Studies Association (ASA) had just passed an academic boycott resolution, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) declared support for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions, and the previous March the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS) was the first U.S.-based academic institution to pass a boycott resolution...

Social Media Rhetoric of the Transnational Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement

This article uses rhetorical analysis to determine the effectiveness and characteristics of social media usage by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel. Hundreds of local student, community, and religious groups in the United States use social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to promote BDS discourse and organize local BDS-related events. Even though social media platforms are important for an international movement composed of a very dispersed population, with millions of Palestinians also living under military occupation, the history of traditional media use during the First Intifada also suggests that social media are not necessary for mobilizing Palestinians at the local level. A preliminary rhetorical analysis of several BDS-related Facebook pages and Twitter accounts reveals that the BDS movement’s social media usage functions similarly in some ways to other contemporary mass movements by facilitating on-the-ground actions and delivering useful information to supporters. BDS movement social media discourse, however, does not establish the same level of emotional connection or interactivity with audiences as some other recent movements have, but these limitations can be partly explained by the unique political, material, and rhetorical constraints of the situation.

BDS as a Mediator

The Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement is a global political campaign led by Palestinian civil society since 2005. Its official aim is to put pressure on Israel to radically change its policies towards Palestinians. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's political philosophy, this paper discusses the BDS movement by looking into its affective powers. In particular, it claims that, above all else, acting as a political mediator BDS weakens the predominance of the current assemblage of public discourses on Israel-Palestine.

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman

Resistance Is Fertile!

This article deals with two nonviolent resistance movements in the contemporary West Bank, where the “local” itself is under constant threat of encroachment by Israeli infrastructures of control, co-option, and containment. Resistance is fertile in two ways: one, people have proposed that nonviolent resistance is the productive (fertile) way to oppose the Israeli occupation, and two, nonviolent resistance is fertile in the sense of using local resources (land, water, plants) to produce local food and drink. The first example is Taybeh beer, the first Palestinian microbrewed beer, and the second is Sharaka, a community supported agriculture group in the West Bank, which supports “reinvention” in the sense of rediscovering local Palestinian foods and making them available to consumers. Both movements assert their opposition to the occupation: Taybeh invites consumers to “taste the revolution” in their beer, while Sharaka invites consumers to seek out the local “baladi” taste of Palestinian products instead of Israeli-produced food products. The article investigates the important differences between the two in terms of their orientation toward international (Taybeh) or local markets and audiences (Sharaka). The two also differ crucially in their attitude toward effective resistance: through developing Palestinian firms within a neoliberal economy or in striving for an independent Palestinian agriculture in opposition to dependence on Israeli food products. Further, the two differ on practices of boycott: Sharaka supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement whereas Taybeh actively seeks Israeli markets for its beer.

Opting for justice: the critical role of anti-colonial Israelis in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement

The historic call by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until it fully complies with its obligations under international law contains a rarely noticed dimension inspired by the South African anti-apartheid principles. It invites ‘conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace’, thereby confirming that principled anti-colonial Jewish Israelis who support the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and uphold freedom, justice, and equality for all as the bases for a just, comprehensive, and sustainable peace are regarded as partners in the struggle.

“War by other Means” or Nonviolent Resistance? Examining the Discourses Surrounding Berkeley’s Divestment Bill

This article explores the discourses surrounding the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement aimed at ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although the boycott strategy is a form of unarmed resistance and thus nonviolent in scope, it has not been widely framed as a “nonviolent” movement. Furthermore, the boycott movement has often been framed in negative terms in Western media, and Israeli representatives have gone so far as to call the BDS movement anti‐Semitic, claiming it seeks to delegitimize the State of Israel. This article parses out how activists and opponents frame the movement and the extent to which these framings reflect actual practice and goals of the movement, through focusing on the case of the University of California, Berkeley student government’s effort to pass a divestment bill in spring 2010. The authors argue that supporters and opponents use different approaches to peace and conflict, which influences how they view the BDS movement.

Love, Rage and the Occupation: Bisexual Politics in Israel/Palestine

This text narrates the writer's story as a bisexual activist and, through it, also the story of the bisexual movement in Israel so far. In addition, the text endeavors to highlight the strands of militarism, violence and racism in Israeli culture, with a focus on the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the Palestinian people. This is meant to achieve two things: first, to deconstruct the false separation between the two fields of ‘LGBT rights’ and antiwar activism; and second, to promote the principles of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, encouraging solidarity with the Palestinian people and nonviolent struggle against the Israeli occupation.

Readers Respond

Readers Respond

Universities in Opposition to Israel’s Military Occupation and the De-development of the West Bank and Gaza

This paper argues that the violation of justice in Palestine began in 1948 and was deepened in 1967 with the further occupation and de-development of Palestine which continues to this day. For forty two years, international law has been defied by Israel with one excuse after another that few people accept. Israel has persistently built more and more settlements and separations that make the basic human right to education and health near impossible for the Palestinians. Whilst international aid has been necessary, it has been politically ineffective in halting the capture and annexing of more and more Palestinian land. More Palestinians are removed from Jerusalem every day as violence upon violence is piled on the people of Palestine. This paper argues that this is unacceptable for the international family of higher education. It argues that universities around the world should take a political lead in response to the call from Palestinian and other peace workers to build the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement in global civil society. This paper moves the position that history has built up to a point where justice for Palestine is now an undeniable global issue for people of conscience everywhere. The situation is such that universities cannot step back and leave it to politicians. Academics and students must speak out and take a lead in ending the day to day abuse of basic Palestinian rights.

Palestinian resistance and international solidarity: the BDS campaign

Israel's recent war in Gaza ('Operation Cast Lead') has both exposed Israel's defiance of international law and provided the occasion for increasing support for an organised transnational boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. The BDS movement is aimed at challenging the Israeli state's illegal military occupation and a host of corresponding repressive policies directed at Palestinians. However, the BDS campaign, and in particular the call for an academic boycott, has been controversial. It has generated a counter-response emphasising, variously, the goals of the movement as ineffective, counterproductive to peace and/or security, contrary to norms of academic freedom and even tied to anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Utilising a Gramscian approach, and drawing from Charles Mills' concept of 'racial contract', we examine the history of the divestment campaign and the debates it has engendered. We argue that the effectiveness of BDS as a strategy of resistance and cross-border solidarity is intimately connected with a challenge to the hegemonic place of Zionism in western ideology. This campaign has challenged an international racial contract which, from 1948, has assigned a common interest between the state of Israel and international political allies, while absenting Palestinians as simultaneously non-white, the subjects of extreme repression and stateless. The BDS campaign also points to an alternative — the promise of a real and lasting peace in the Middle East.