BDS isn’t the Answer; Here’s Another Suggestion

Don't Mourn, Organize (in response to the Park Slope Food Coop vote....)

I am not a member of the Park Slope Food Coop, but I am a member of the Park Slope community. I feel the pain of so many of my friends and neighbors with the latest decision by the coop to boycott Israeli products to protest the Israeli government.

This boycott decision, like many others, is a symbolic and performative vote that makes people feel like they have power and assertive authority to impact the Netanyahu government. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a symbolic vote against the state of Israel’s existence.

The ethos behind the BDS movement is the eradication of Israel as a Jewish state, which, as is often forgotten, was set up by UN charter in 1948. It’s not simply to end the occupation by Israel of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Meanwhile, the occupation in these two locations thickens (Israel has gone back to Gaza with a military hold, not yet a civilian hold since the war with Hamas and the settlements in the West Bank are growing by the day).

The BDS campaign strengthens this Greater Israel movement while further harming Palestinians living under occupation. It’s time to stop.

Most of the decisions taken by those supporting BDS have done nothing to harm Israel’s economy. That’s simply the fact. Anyone who has numbers to show otherwise, please bring them forward. Even in the recent war years, as some investment has fled; the Israeli economy is growing.

Those most isolated inside Israel due to the boycott are artists and academics—forsaken internationally, while condemned, penalized and defunded by their own right-wing government.

Pro-democracy protesters are left on their own, fighting in the streets to oppose the Netanyahu government for several years now, with police water cannons turned on them, and more.

A vibrant civil society sector works tirelessly to maintain and strengthen civil and human rights inside Israel, to fight against the massive attacks on democracy inside the country and against attacks on Palestinians under occupation and to end the occupation. They, too, are targeted by the right-wing government and ignored at best by the anti-Israel protesters or pro-Palestinian activists across the globe.

Throughout these past years of protests and boycotts, the Israeli government’s actions against their own people and against the Palestinians under occupation has gotten fiercer and more deadly.

I get that people are frustrated and angry, even sickened by Netanyahu’s policies. So am I. I have spent my entire adult life advocating for a different solution for the Jewish and the Palestinian people than the one under which they currently live. I will probably go to my grave fighting this same fight. I can’t say that my political advocacy has succeeded, but I can say that the BDS activists won’t succeed.

So what will? Here are a few ideas that at least will begin to move the region in a positive direction.

1. This is an election year in Israel. This is a chance to defeat Netanyahu and his entire coalition. It’s a critical election that will decide the future of both Jews and Palestinians in the region. Support publicly and financially those in Israel who are working to change the government. This means support for human and civil rights and get out the vote efforts for Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. There are a slew of organizations, but any list must surely include Association for Civil Rights Israel (ACRI) and the New Israel Fund and their grantees. Netanyahu will doubtless seek to suppress the Arab vote inside Israel. Work with NGOs who are doing voter protection.

2. The loss of USAID funding means that NGOs promoting peace, civil and human rights for all in this region have taken a big hit. Do the research and support Palestinian and Israeli NGOs.

3. Support organizations that advocate for an end to the occupation and seek to protect Palestinian civilians against settler violence. Groups like Peace Now, Settlement Watch, Rabbis for Human Rights and Breaking the Silence. There are new groups starting up by the day, and while the numbers are still too small, they are growing and need support.

4. Support cooperative peace efforts by women leaders from Israel and the Palestinian side with Women Wage Peace, an Israeli-based group of Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, and their partner, Women of the Sun, a group of Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza.

5. Fund efforts inside Israel to promote shared society, equal for Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel, like the Hand in Hand network of schools, Givat Haviva educational center, Standing Together, the YMCA in Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem Youth Choir.

6. Advocate for the Israeli government to adhere to its own laws and to international laws regarding Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Minister Ben Gvir, who oversees the prison system, has ignored every legal ruling to adhere to these laws. There has been no adequate inspection of prison conditions since October 7^th, 2023, and there is known to be violations of law including starvation and more of security prisoners. He should be sanctioned by any democratic government, as well as other members of the government like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

7. Demand governmental sanctions against Finance Minister Smotrich for his illegal withholding of funds belonging to the Palestinian Authority, which is causing a near total economic collapse of the PA.

8. Target and sanction any Israeli government efforts to expand the occupation, as the Netanyahu government is doing fearlessly and dangerously.

9. Demand that the US government sanction the infrastructure of the settlement movement, their building companies, their products, and their leaders.

10. Join the the growing global campaign to free Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian political leader who was tried and imprisoned for five life terms by Israel in 2004, due to his role in the Second Intifada. Barghouti is the most popular leader among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in all polling for the last decades, superseding every Palestinian leader of any persuasion. He supports two states for two peoples. His condition in prison remains precarious due to Ben Gvir. There is nothing more vital for the Palestinian people than to free Barghouti—which is why, despite his being at the top of every list that Israel has negotiated with Hamas or other Palestinian factions for prisoner release or exchanges in the last several decades, the Israelis have refused to release him.

11. Demand that the Trump Administration lift its embargo of any Palestinian Authority visa holder from being unable to enter the US. Palestinians living under occupation can’t come to the US to advocate for themselves thanks to new Trump policies.

12. Target the role of the current US Ambassador to Israel and the Trump State Department in their efforts to turn back US foreign policy in support of two states and the role of the now shuttered (by Trump) US Consulate in Jerusalem to advocate for the Palestinians.

13. Demand economic sanctions by the EU and the US to impact the settlement project, including both goods and services and the ministers and the government that supports the settlements and the growth and expansion of Israeli borderlines. A targeted economic boycott can indeed make a difference, unlike a blanket boycott that has shown no impact.

14. Sanction individual ministers who lead the settlement efforts and continue to use diplomatic pressure to challenge the Netanyahu government’s policies including with international judicial sanctions.

15. Send a clear message as Israelis go to the polls that a new government must adhere to international laws.

16. Support institutions of higher learning on both sides of the ‘non-border’ who are committed to a free inquiry of debate and learning, including leading Israeli universities that are based inside the 1967 Israeli borders and Palestinian universities under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Instead of boycotting centers of higher education in Israel, why not create partnerships between academics who are being penalized by their own government and international institutions and scholars?

17. Support film and arts programming that offers a message of hope and political independence for both peoples. For example, the Israeli film community has been severely impacted by boycott activity—which has done nothing to help one Palestinian but has taken away an opportunity to tell their stories and for their employment in the film industry in Israel. In fact, due to the anti-occupation bias of many of the films, the industry is attacked inside Irael by the right-wing government, who constantly looks for ways to defund them. Obtaining government funding for the arts in a country as small as Israel is not a capitulation to or endorsement of government policies and for boycott activists to see it as such is a misreading of the economic climate for filmmaking in a country like Israel.

18. Fund non-profit efforts to get books published inside Israel in Hebrew that fearful mainstream publishers inside Israel right now won’t publish. If you are a writer outside of Israel, please do allow your books to be published in Israel (even in a work around of the global BDS campaign like Sally Rooney did). It’s vital to get as much debate and discussion happening inside Israel and to connect literary voices.

It’s too easy to argue that anything Israeli or anyone Israeli is culpable. Under that argument, a Harvard professor is culpable for a university grant to do military research. An art museum is culpable for taking city funds where a city may be also investing in dirty energy.

The current Israeli government, led by and for settlers and the greater Israel movement, seeks to eradicate the line between Israel’s internationally recognized border and the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. We all need to stop them. Congressional action is key, especially with Trump in the White House and for sure if the Democrats win in the by-election. It’s time to make real change.

If you find points of agreeement here, please share this widely.