Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)
Overview
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, founded in 2005, is self-described as “a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights” and “a truly global movement against Israeli Apartheid.”
Boycott: Calling on consumers to stop buying or selling products made in Israel or by Israeli companies; encouraging individuals and academic institutions to end affiliations with Israeli cultural and academic institutions, and putting pressure on artists not to play or exhibit in Israel.
Divestment: Campus campaigns for student governments to vote for the university to remove their investments and not stock products connected to companies that are Israeli or that have affiliations with Israel.
Sanctions: Calling for international sanctions against the State of Israel.
Ties to terrorism and the State of Israel’s dissolution
The BDS movement is not a grass-roots organization – to call it thus has been called a fundamental misrepresentation. Evidence suggest that the movement is directly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organization Hamas. The movement is considered extreme even by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas who stated his opposition to a BDS boycott of Israel in 2013.
The BDS movement’s official stance on Israel is the radical “one-state solution” that has been widely denounced as a scheme to dissolve Israel as the Jewish State.
Co-founder of the movement and it’s chief spokesperson Omar Barghouti has explained this goal at length saying that “A return for refugees [the one-state solution] would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state,” and that once it is implemented, “You will have a Palestinian state next to a Palestinian State rather than a Palestinian state next to Israel.”
Incidents
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It is documented that universities that pass BDS pro-divestment resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitism on campus. In April 2013, the student government of the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) debated a BDS resolution. Reports emerged of threats of violence, the spitting on a female student senator, and theft of the personal property of anti-BDS activists. As a result, the student government chose to vote via a “secret ballot” in order to ensure their own safety.
The University of California Student Association (UCSA) passed a BDS resolution on September 15, 2012. September 15 coincided with the eve of Rosh Hashanah, thereby ensuring that no Jewish students would be present to oppose the vote. Indeed, the leadership of the Jewish community was not made aware of the resolution until after the holiday.
Speakers with ties to terrorism
The 2013 BDS conference was addressed by Fadwa Barghouthi, wife of Marwan Barghouti, who is incarcerated for terrorism charges in Israel. The BDS website considers him to be “illegally incarcerated,” although he masterminded the 2nd Intifada- the violent Palestinian campaign of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of Israelis between 2000 and 2003.
Her speech was followed by the wife of another incarcerated terrorist, Abla Saadat. Her husband is Ahmad Saadat, the former Secretary General of the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). His group was known for airplane hijackings in the 1980’s.
