A founding member of the campaign for the academic and cultural boycott outlines the motivation behind the movement.

Author and history professor Mark LeVine speaks with sociologist Lisa Taraki, a co-founder of the Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Mark LeVine: What is the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement and how is it related to the academic and cultural boycott movement? How have both evolved in the past few years in terms of their goals and methods?

Lisa Taraki: The BDS movement can be summed up as the struggle against Israeli colonisation, occupation and apartheid. BDS is a rights-based strategy to be pursued until Israel meets its obligation to recognise the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and complies with the requirements of international law.

Within this framework, the academic and cultural boycott of Israel has gained considerable ground in the seven years since the launching of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in 2004. The goals of the academic and cultural boycott call, as the aims of the Palestinian Civil Society Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions issued in 2005, have remained consistent: to end the colonisation of Palestinian lands occupied in 1967; to ensure full equality of Palestinian citizens of Israel and end the system of racial discrimination; and to realise the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

The logic of the BDS movement has also remained consistent. The basic logic of BDS is the logic of pressure, not diplomacy, persuasion, or dialogue. Diplomacy as a strategy for achieving Palestinian rights has proven to be futile, due to the protection and immunity Israel enjoys from hegemonic world powers and those in their orbit.

Second, the logic of persuasion has also shown its bankruptcy, since no amount of “education” of Israelis about the horrors of occupation and other forms of oppression seems to have turned the tide. Dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis, which remains very popular among Israeli liberals and Western foundations and governments that fund the activities, has also failed miserably. Dialogue is often framed in terms of “two sides to the story”, in the sense that each side must understand the pain, anguish, and suffering of the other, and to accept the narrative of the other.

This presents the “two sides” as if they were equally culpable, and deliberately avoids acknowledgment of the basic coloniser-colonised relationship. Dialogue does not promote change, but rather reinforces the status quo, and in fact is mainly in the interest of the Israeli side of the dialogue, since it makes Israelis feel that they are doing something while in fact they are not. The logic of BDS is the logic of pressure. And that pressure has been amplifying.

>>> Read full article on Al Jazeera’s website here.

1. Pampers

diapers and baby products
Pampers’ parent company Proctor & Gamble is the biggest client of Avgol Nonwoven Industries, one of the world’s leading diaper makers which supplies diaper fabrics.  Avgol’s lead manufacturing plant is located in the Barkan industrial zone, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.  According to international law, it is illegal for Israel, as an occupying power, to use occupied Palestinian territory for profit.
(Source:  Who Profits)

2. Sabra

hummus, baba ghanoush, and other refrigerated foods
This brand of hummus, baba ghanoush and other foods is co-owned by Pepsico and Israel’s second-largest food company, The Strauss Group.  On its “Corporate Responsibility” webpage, the Strauss Group boasts about “sweetening the special moments” of the Israeli military’s notorious Golani Brigade by supplying it with food products and political support.  In 2008, Breaking the Silence, a group of ex-Israeli soldiers came forward with documentation of the Golani Brigade’s torture and humiliation of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
(Additional Sources:  Adalah NY, Ha’aretz)

3. Yes to Carrots

bath and beauty products
Israeli beauty manufacturer Yes to Carrots purports to make organic, “cruelty free” and all natural beauty products that “make a difference, not only to how you look, but also to how you feel about yourself and the world around you.”  Yes to Carrots also prides themselves in using minerals from the Dead Sea.   According to Oxfam International, the area where Yes to Carrots gets it minerals is Palestinian land illegally occupied by Israel and, according to international law, it is illegal for Israel to exploit these natural resources for profit.

For more information about Israeli products made illegally from Dead Sea natural resources visit www.stolenbeauty.org.

4. Osem

croutons, snacks, and couscous
Osem Investments Ltd is an Israeli-based food manufacturer and distributor, 39% of which is owned by Nestlé.  According to its website, Osem’s USA company reaches more than 1000 independent stores and 3000 supermarkets.  According to London-based NGO Corporate Watch, Nestlé has been implicated in a variety of harmful practices since 1977 including: the unethical and harmful promotion of its baby formula, farm labor violations, union busting, and environmental abuse.
(Additional Sources:  Oxfam International, Greenpeace, The Guardian)

5. Tribe

hummus
This 15 year old hummus company based in Massachusetts was recently sold to the Osem Investments (see above) for $57 million.
(Source:  Reuters)

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To view our complete list of Israeli products to boycott, click here.  To report new product sightings, email us at products@baceia.org.

Here’s a snippet on the Kairos Palestine Document:

Kairos is an ancient Greek term meaning the right or opportune moment. The Kairos Palestine Document is inspired by the liberation theology, especially in South Africa where a similar document was issued at a crucial time in the struggle against apartheid. Informed by a lucid vision based on the universal principles of “equality, justice, liberty and respect for pluralism,” Palestinian Christians issue this document today to explore a morally sound way out of the “dead end” reached in the Palestinian tragedy, “in which human beings are destroyed.”

And a snippet on the AIC’s report:

The report proves and clarifies that aside from very few minor ones, the Israeli academic institutions have not opted to take a neutral non-political position, but to fully support the Israeli security forces and policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians despite the serious suspicions of crimes and atrocities hovering above them. Examples of this range from the development of weaponry for the Israeli army such as the Israeli Technion development of an unmanned D9 house-demolishing tractor, through economic and public support of specific operations such as the special non-academic based scholarship given by Ben Gurion University for students who had served in the 2008-2009 attacks on Gaza, to direct participation in the occupation by establishment of campuses and University buildings in illegal settlements.

These are very exciting tools that we help can expand our movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions further into religious and academic communities.  We encourage you to read the two articles and the reports!

The Israeli franchisee of Columbia Sportswear, a large Portland-based manufacturer of outdoor clothing, with an impressive Corporate Social Responsibility portfolio and what appears to be a rather progressive domestic client base, rather the following ad in the November 27 edition of the Jerusalem Post’s Friday Magazine.

Note the description at the bottom “for active work in various regions, including outposts.” If we have any doubt what “outposts” the ad is referring to, see the same ad in Hebrew, which ran on the same day in the Friday Political Supplement of Makor Rishon, a right-wing weekly. The Hebrew translation of “outposts” there is “gvaot” (hills) a euphemism for the illegal outposts populated by the “hilltop youth”, notorious for their violence against Palestinian civilians.

Definitely worth contacting their offices, especially given their Corporate Social Responsibility language.  We’ll keep you updated if we hear anything else.

Check out Mondoweiss and Coteret — two other great resources.

photo by Ramsey El-Qare

That was the message of Omar Barghouti’s frank and motivational talk at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Those of us at BACEIA were very excited to co-sponsor his talk on November 3^rd as Mr. Barghouti is a recognized leader of the BDS movement. The event on November 3 was a celebration for the second anniversary of the Edward Said Cultural Mural, a project of the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) at SFSU. The evening also included remarks by Ken Monteiro, Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU, Dr. Jess Ghannam, community activist and scholar, and Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, professor in the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU.

For those who have heard Mr. Barghouti talk in the past, such as at the divestment conference at Georgetown University in the spring of 2006, it came as no surprise that his talk at SFSU was poignant and inspirational. Previously he has talked mostly about his work on cultural and academic boycott of Israel as a founding member of PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. At SFSU, Mr. Barghouti discussed BDS more generally, providing the history, context and motivation behind pursuing BDS against Israel. He discussed the closure of schools during the first intifada, the parallels to the South African anti-apartheid struggle, and a bit of history around the 2005 call for BDS by Palestinian civil society.

The frank, and at the same time motivational, themes of his talk were punctuated with the remark that in many respects “the US lags behind Europe and the rest of the world.” First, the US has lagged behind Europe in its understanding of the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. Here he carefully explained an important aspect of that work: a few years ago PACBI clarified that their call is not to boycott Israeli individuals but to boycott Israeli institutions. There are a number of Israelis who oppose that county’s apartheid structure and BDS organizations should not be in the business of providing litmus tests for individuals’ political stances. Instead, the cultural and academic boycott should focus on the relations with Israel institutions that as a whole are complicit in maintaining and justifying apartheid structures. (See Basic PACBI Documents for a further discussion.)

The second area that the US has lagged behind is in winning campaigns. BDS has been winning some major victories lately and Mr. Barghouti discussed the details of some of them. Besides gaining endorsement from major labor unions and other organizations around the world, the BDS movement has been able to influence some major corporations to cancel business plans with Israel. The announcement by the French company Veolia Transport that it would pull out of the highly controversial Jerusalem light rail project is one such example. But these key victories have not yet happened in the US but in Europe and elsewhere.  (See the BDS Movement website for information about the victories & all things BDS.)

photo by Ramsey El-Qare

Though US groups may not yet be at the point of influencing the decisions of major corporations one can’t help but feel that we are not far behind. One key point that Mr. Barghouti made about BDS is that how it is implemented at a local level should be based on the local conditions. The 2005 call does not ask people to pursue BDS in any pre-prescribed manner, rather targets and methods should be based on the local context. Those of us pursuing BDS in the US know that the conditions here are different than those in Europe and the rest of the world. For us, the take away is one of hope: BDS is a global movement that is rising because of the leadership of courageous Palestinians like Mr. Barghouti and because there is collective grassroots pressure coming from around the world in response to the call for action. The goal of BACEIA is to provide a significant contribution to this global movement by building BDS locally. So, the take away for us is that BDS is a dynamic strategy to end apartheid in Israel that now, more than ever, we need to be a part of. We need to continue our efforts to build a broad base of support for BDS locally and work toward achieving victories, big and small.

While there are many Israeli and multinational companies that benefit from apartheid, we put together this list to highlight ten specific companies to target.  Many of these produce goods in such a way that directly harms Palestinians — exploiting labor, developing technology for military operations, or supplying equipment for illegal settlements.  Many are also the targets of boycotts for other reasons, like harming the environment and labor violations.

1. AHAVA

This brand’s cosmetics are produced using salt, minerals, and mud from the Dead Sea — natural resources that are excavated from the occupied West Bank.  The products themselves are manufactured in the illegal Israeli settlement Mitzpe Shalem.  AHAVA is the target of CODEPINK’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign.
(Sources: Who Profits, Haaretz)

2. Delta Galil Industries

Israel’s largest textiles manufacturer provides clothing and underwear for such popular brands as Calvin Klein, Nike, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, JC Penny, Target, Wal-Mart, Victoria’s Secret (see #10) and many others.  Its founder and former chairman Dov Lautman (who retired in 2007) was presented with the Israel Prize in 2007 for helping to build the Israeli economy.  Lautman is known for globalizing sales and production, including moving manufacturing to Egypt, Jordan, and other countries with cheaper labor costs.
(Sources: Delta Galil [PDF], Haaretz, International Socialist Review)

3. Motorola

While many of us know this brand for its stylish cellphones, did you know that it also develops and manufactures missile guidance systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or “drones”)?  Motorola components are also used in communications and surveillance systems in settlements, at checkpoints, and by soldiers patrolling the 490 mile apartheid wall.  In April 2009, Motorola sold their unit that produced bomb fuzes, after Human Rights Watch reported finding shrapnel with Motorola serial numbers at civilian sites targeted in Operation Cast Lead.  The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has launched the “Hang Up on Motorola” campaign.
(Sources: US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation, Who Profits, Jerusalem Post, Human Rights Watch, Haaretz, Innovative Minds [good link roundup])

4. L’Oreal

This cosmetics and perfume company is known for its investments and manufacturing activities in Israel, including production in Migdal Haemek, the “Silicon Valley” of Israel built on the land of Palestinian village Al-Mujaydil, which was ethnically cleansed in 1948.  In 1998, a representative of L’Oreal was given the Jubilee Award by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for strengthening the Israeli economy.
(Sources: )

5. Dorot Garlic and Herbs (Trader Joe’s)

These frozen herbs that are sold at Trader Joe’s are shipped halfway around the world when they could easily be purchased locally.  Trader Joe’s also sells Israeli Cous Cous and Pastures of Eden feta cheese that are made in Israel.  QUIT, South Bay Mobilization, and other groups have targeted Trader Joe’s nationally with a “Don’t Buy into Apartheid” campaign.
(Sources: )

6. Estee Lauder

This company’s chairman Ronald Lauder is also the chairman of the Jewish National Fund, a quasi-governmental organization that was established in 1901 to acquire Palestinian land and is connected to the continued building of illegal settlements.  Estee Lauder’s popular brands include Clinique, MAC, Origins, Bumble & Bumble, Aveda, fragrance lines for top designers, and many others.  They have been the target of QUIT’s “Estee Slaughter Killer Products” campaign.
(Sources: )

7. Intel

This technology company that manufactures computer processors and other hardware components employs thousands of Israelis and has exports from Israel totaling over $1 billion per year.  They are one of Israel’s oldest foreign supporters, having established their first development center outside of the US in 1974 in Haifa.  Al-Awda (the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition) has urged action against Intel for building a facility on the land of former village Iraq Al Manshiya, which was cleansed in 1949.
(Sources: )

8. Sabra

This brand of hummus, baba ghanoush and other foods is co-owned by Israel’s second-largest food company The Strauss Group and Pepsico.  On the “Corporate Responsibility” section of its website, The Strauss Group boasts of its relationship to the Israeli Army, offering food products and political support.
(Sources: )

9. Sara Lee

UPDATE: It has come to our attention that Sara lee sold its shares in Delta Galil in 2005.  We are researching the implications of this sale and may remove Sara Lee from this list. Sara Lee holds a 30% stake in Delta Galil (see #2) and is the world’s largest clothing manufacturer, which owns or is affiliated with such brands as Hanes, Playtex, Champion, Leggs, Sara Lee Bakery, Ball Park hotdogs, Wonderbra, and many others.  Similar to L’Oreal (see #4), a representative of Sara Lee received the Jubilee Award from Netanyahu for its commitment to business with Israel.
(Sources: )

10. Victoria’s Secret

Most of Victoria’s Secret’s bras are produced by Delta Galil (see #2), and much of the cotton is also grown in Israel on confiscated Palestinian land.  Victoria’s Secret has also been the target of labor rights’ groups for sourcing products from companies with labor violations, and by environmental groups for their unsustainable use of paper in producing their catalogues.  That’s not sexy!
(Sources: )

Remember, it’s also important to let these companies — and the stores that sell them — know that we will not support them as long as they support Israeli apartheid!

To view our complete list of Israeli products in Bay Area stores click here.  To report more Product Sightings, email products@baceia.org.

NEW!  Click here to download as a PDF!

The cultural boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa has been a major source of inspiration in formulating the Palestinian boycott calls and their criteria.  In that context, the key argument put forth by the South African regime and its apologists around the world against the anti-apartheid cultural and sports boycott — that boycotts violate the freedom of expression and cultural exchange — was resolutely refuted by the director of the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid, Enuga S. Reddy, who in 1984 wrote [5]: “It is rather strange, to say the least, that the South African regime which denies all freedoms … to the African majority … should become a defender of the freedom of artists and sportsmen of the world.  We have a list of people who have performed in South Africa because of ignorance of the situation or the lure of money or unconcern over racism.  They need to be persuaded to stop entertaining apartheid, to stop profiting from apartheid money and to stop serving the propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime.”  Similarly, the Palestinian boycott call targets cultural institutions, projects and events that continue to serve the purposes of the Israeli colonial and apartheid regime.

While BACEIA is currently organizing around a consumer boycott of Israeli products, we’re certainly supportive of other forms of boycott as well.  Recently, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) was formed to support the work of PACBI here in the US.

Read the full set of guidelines here.

The decision came after a review of UK defence exports to Israel announced in April by David Miliband, the foreign secretary. Israel’s London embassy ascribed the revocation of the licences to pressure from MPs and human rights organisations, the Ha’aretz newspaper reported.  (emphasis added)

and

Ha’aretz said the British decision was not expected to have any impact on the navy’s operational capability. But it added: “It has great political significance and could encourage other countries to halt defence exports to Israel. The country considered most likely to be next is Belgium, which sells Israel equipment used to disperse demonstrations.”

Read the complete article here.

This strategy bred the call for cultural boycott of Israel. This demand is voiced by every part of the Palestinian existence: by the civil society under occupation and by Palestinians in Israel. It is supported by the Palestinian refugees and is led by members of the Palestinian exile communities. It came in the right moment and gave individuals and organizations in the UK a way to express their disgust at the Israeli policies and at the same time an avenue for participating in the overall pressure on the government to change its policy of providing immunity for the impunity on the ground.

If Pappé’s analysis is accurate, it sounds like UK public opinion is a little bit ahead of the US’s in terms of its receptiveness to the BDS movement.  Still, it’s useful to be reminded that BDS is a strategy of escalation that continues to grow with every victory!

Read the complete article here.

We don’t have to prove that Israel is identical to apartheid South Africa in order to [justify] the label “apartheid.” Apartheid is a generalized crime according to United Nations conventions and there are certain criteria that may or may not apply to any specific situation… According to the basic conventions of the UN defining the crime of apartheid, Israel satisfies almost all the conditions to be granted the label of apartheid.

For a hundred years, well before the South African inspiration, we have been mainly inspired by our own history and roots of civil resistance. In a hundred years of conflict with the settler-colonial conquest of Zionism, we have resisted Zionism mostly by civil resistance and not violent or armed resistance, unlike the common myth that Palestinian resistance is only armed. This is not true. For more than a hundred years Palestinians have resisted with cultural and artistic resistance, strikes, demonstrations, women’s and trade union organizing, and so on. The majority of people were involved in nonviolent resistance before the inspiration of Gandhi and that of South Africa.

I must clarify that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement takes no position on the shape of the political solution. It adopts a rights-based, not solutions-based, approach… There are three segments of the Palestinian people [those living in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and refugees and their descendents in exile] — unless you address the basic requirements of justice for all three segments than we will not have exercised our right to self-determination.

Read the complete interview here.