Thanks to the strategic campaigning of people and organisations all over the world, the global BDS movement is having a real impact. For example:​

• BDS was a major factor behind the 46% drop in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014, according to a UN report. A Rand Corporation study predicts BDS could reduce Israel’s GDP “by 1 to 2 percent” annually over the next 10 years, while a World Bank report reveals that Israel’s exports to the Palestinian economy have dropped by 24% in the first quarter of 2015.

• French multinational Veolia has completely withdrawn from Israel after a BDS campaign over its role in Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian land cost it billions of dollars in lost contracts.

• Top Israeli weapons manufacturers complain of a plummeting exports “crisis,” partly due to “less desire for Israeli-made products.”

• Major international companies including Orange, G4S and Unilever have announced steps to end their participation in Israel’s crimes.  

• Thousands of artists including Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, Faithless, Lauryn Hill, Brian Eno and Elvis Costello have refused to play in Israel.

• Academic associations and student unions, most notably in the US, Canada, South Africa and the UK, now support BDS. A number of churches have divested from companies involved in Israel’s occupation.

• Israel regards BDS as a “strategic threat” to its ongoing oppression of Palestinians. Some Israelis are calling for modest changes to Israeli policy.

Check out our Impact page for more information. 

The 2005 Palestinian call for BDS against Israel has triggered a massive response from people of conscience and civil society organisations across the world.

BDS campaigns are supported by scores of unions, churches, NGOs and movements representing millions across every continent. Progressive Jewish groups and conscientious Jewish-Israeli groups, play an important role in the movement.

Public figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters, Angela Davis and Judith Butler back BDS.

Corporations, banks and investment funds now adopt the logic of BDS with some starting to divest their money from Israel’s occupation.

BDS leads major news headlines and is shaping how the Palestinian cause is perceived in public. BDS is leading a tidal change in support of justice for Palestinians. ​

The BDS movement is leading a change in public opinion in Western societies in regards to Israel. The rapidly growing widespread support for Palestinian rights is making it harder for governments to maintain their unconditional support for Israel,

In the US, where the Israel lobby has a strong hold on Congress, polls indicate an unprecedented  determining shift in the so-called “bipartisan” support for Israel in the country.

A 2015 Luntz poll of “opinion elites” shows that 76% of Democratic opinion shapers say Israel has too much influence in the US, with 47% of Democrats agreeing that Israel is a “racist” country. Close to 31% of those leading Democrats, the poll shows, are ready to support BDS.

Another poll from 2015 shows that 49% of Democrats favor “sanctions or more serious action” against on Israel.

A 2014 poll by an Israel lobby group in the US reveals that 15% of Jewish Americans support a full boycott of against Israel.

Of course, support for Israel remains deeply entrenched, but the BDS movement is showing that it can become a hugely powerful tool in ending western support for Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism.  

In Europe governments are taking steps compatible with  the movement’s general  approach, such as measures that enforce the EU’s non recognition of Israel’s claim of sovereignty in the occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories. These include warning businesses to stay away from illegal Israeli settlements, excluding Israeli entities operating in the OPT (including East Jerusalem) from funding and recognition, and considering cutting all financial transactions and ending business deals with Israeli banks that fund the occupation.

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led, global movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.

BDS is inspired and inspiring. It draws inspiration from decades of Palestinian popular resistance, from the South African anti-apartheid struggle, from the US Civil Rights movement, among other others. It inspires Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian rights worldwide to speak truth to power, to challenge  hegemonic, racist power structures and to assert that Palestinian rights must be respected and implemented.  

Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. It is maintaining a regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people.

World governments fail to hold Israel to account. Companies and institutions help Israel to oppress Palestinians. In response, Palestinians are calling for nonviolent grassroots boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigning against Israel.

Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
International law recognises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as occupied by Israel.

2. Granting Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel their right to full equality

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194

Ten years since its launch, BDS is now widely supported by unions, academic associations, churches and movements across the world.

As a result of BDS pressure, major companies, such as Veolia, Orange and CRH are withdrawing from the Israeli market after following campaigns over their involvement in Israeli projects that violate international law. The UN and the World Bank say that BDS is starting to have a significant economic impact. Thousands of artists including major celebrities like Roger Waters and Lauryn Hill now refuse to play in Israel.

Israel is increasingly worried that the BDS movement is making it a pariah state in the way that South Africa once was.

See our What is BDS? page for more information.

The BDS movement aims to pressure Israel to respect international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
International law recognises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as occupied by Israel.

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

These are three basic rights without which the Palestinian people cannot exercise its inalienable right to self-determination.

The BDS movement does not advocate for a particular solution to the conflict and does not call for either a “one state solution” or a “two state solution”. Instead, BDS focuses on the realization of basic rights and the implementation of international law.

BDS is a strategy of popular resistance and the most effective strategy of international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for rights. It is not an ideology or a dogma that can be helpful in all circumstances of injustice.

BDS is a Palestinian-led movement. It is only logical that Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with their struggle orient their struggle towards Israel, the party that denies Palestinians their freedom, and not towards North Korea, for example. The South African liberation movement also targeted the regime of oppression that they lived under, naturally, not the one in Cambodia or Honduras at the time.

Palestinians are choosing to use and calling for the tactic of BDS to hold Israel to account because it is necessary, morally consistent and effective.

The BDS movement challenges the way in which Israel is singled out for unprecedented support from the international community. Western governments in particular shield Israel from being held to account for its war crimes against Palestinians, allowing it to continue its colonial project without facing consequences. The BDS movement is working to end this exceptionalism and calls for Israel to be held to account according to the standards of international law.

As the South African anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu once said, the west places Israel “on a pedestal,” above international law and above criticism. BDS aims to take Israel off that pedestal to be held accountable for its violations of international law. ​

BDS is a strategy for effective solidarity and not a dogma or ideology. As our What to Boycott page explains, the BDS movement is impactful when it focuses its consumer boycotts and campaigns on a number of companies that are most deeply involved in Israel’s occupation and apartheid.

Intel, the US chip manufacturer, has invested billions in the Israeli economy, making it deeply complicit in funding Israeli impunity. However, Intel is not currently a worldwide BDS target because of its near monopoly status in its sector, making a consumer boycott of the company hard to succeed at present.

We must remain strategic and think of sustained, long-term impact on Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.

The fact that Israel exports useful technological and medical products doesn’t mean it should escape accountability for its grave human rights violations. South African scientists produced useful medical advances during apartheid – it was still necessary and important to boycott the apartheid regime. ​

Like any colonial society that is not held accountable for its crimes, Israel has shifted to the far right in recent years. The current government is Israel’s most racist and extremist ever. This is due to many factors, but nonviolent Palestinian resistance and international solidarity with it can hardly be counted among the top of these.

A small and gradually growing number of Israelis and Israeli organisations support BDS. They understand that BDS is needed to pressure Israel to comply with international law and to make clear to ordinary Israelis that Israel’s occupation and apartheid system is widely opposed.

Israeli business leaders and politicians are warning that the boycott is starting to isolate Israel, and some are responding to the growth of BDS by calling for modest policy changes.

There’s a real fear within Israel that it is becoming the pariah state that South Africa once was. This is leading some Israelis to question whether Israeli apartheid is sustainable in the long term.

The way in which the UN, the international community and governments have failed to hold Israel to account for its actions is a principle reason why extreme anti-Palestinian ideas have become more popular in Israel. BDS seeks to address this impunity and lack of accountability.

BDS does not target artists. It targets institutions based on their complicity in Israel’s violations of international law.

Israel has made a deliberate decision to use culture to whitewash its crimes.

As Israel’s standing in the world deteriorates and isolation grows, it increasingly attempts to use culture as a tool to cover up its crimes and mitigate the damaging effects of its oppression of Palestinians on its global image.

Following the Gaza massacre in 2009, an Israeli official announced a plan to “send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits” to “show Israel’s prettier face”.  This was part of the Brand Israel project, launched by Israel’s foreign ministry in 2005 to counter the boycott.

Often when Israeli artists perform overseas using government funding, they have to sign a contract promising to “promote the policy interests of the State of Israel”. Clearly such performances become propaganda activities to rebrand Israeli apartheid.

When international artists violate the boycott and perform in Israel, it helps to normalise Israel’s crimes. That’s why the Israeli government portrays concerts in Israel as a sign of support for its policies.

Read more at our Cultural Boycott campaign hub.