Israel has repeatedly violated the Geneva Conventions, defied over seventy UN resolutions, and ignored rulings of the International Court of Justice. The man-made humanitarian crisis in Gaza was explained by Dov Weissglass, a former public face for the Sharon government, as an idea “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”. During the 22-day attack on Gaza that started in December 2008, hospitals, mosques and schools were bombed and roughly 1300 Palestinians lost their lives. When international civil society sends humanitarian aid ships to Gaza, they are attacked by commando forces. Palestinian land and water is confiscated to make room for illegal settlements; homes, farms and orchards are demolished. People are immobilized and harassed by a web of checkpoints, walls, settler-only roads and closures. Palestinian political leaders are being subjected to targeted assassinations and extrajudicial detentions.
There is a way to describe all of these atrocities with only one word: Occupation. It seems clear that something has to be done. But what?
How do you challenge and alter the violent behavior of one of the worlds largest military powers, a perpetual human rights violator who shows no respect for international courts or the UN? How do you end an occupation that has been going on for over forty years, that every day reaps new victims? How do you create a peaceful solution in the region, justice and equality, and a more hopeful future for Palestinians and Israelis alike?
All forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force the state of Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine. What has not been tried before is the strategy of boycott, divestment and sanctions — BDS for short. This is what the Palestinian civil society has called for, and from this call, a global movement has slowly been gaining momentum and is just about to hit it big.
So what is BDS, and how could it change things for the better?
The idea is to send a powerful, non-violent message to Israel that we are bearing witness to the ongoing atrocities, and that what is happening today in Gaza and in the West Bank is unacceptable. The aim is not to reject, but to bring about change. To embrace this strategy is, like the friend of a drug addict, to stop enabling the abuse.
In the US, and in regard to Palestine and Israel, silence is unfortunately complicity. Every year, the city of Olympia alone forks over an estimated $940,000 to Israel, the majority of which is used to buy US made weaponry to be used against Palestinians. The US as a whole spends around $3 billion a year on Israel (links). The occupation would not exist as it does today if it wasn’t for the money that your employer sends to Israel through federal taxes, paycheck by paycheck.
Governments, particularly here in the US, and international institutions, have failed to bring justice to Palestinians. It is now up to us, the civil society, the activists, the artists, the local business owners, the people on the street, the working mothers, the retired, the religious, the atheists: We need to stop enabling the abuse.
Naomi Klein has written that “the reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.” In the face of oppression in South Africa, university students, labor unions, and churches used their economic agency to apply pressure on the Apartheid regime demanding that it renounce its discriminatory practices and replace them with a policy of “one man, one vote.” The same could happen in Palestine and Israel.
So why BDS? It is non-violent, it is accessible to everyone and it has proven successful in the past. Let’s get to work!
