Key Questions: BDS

In Brief: The BDS movement is a Palestinian civil society initiative calling for global boycotts, divestment, and sanctions to pressure Israel to end occupation, guarantee equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and uphold the right of return for refugees. 

In More Detail: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) refers to a 2005 call issued by Palestinian civil society organizations to end complicity in Israel’s system of apartheid, discrimination, disruption of Palestinian self-determination, and violation of international law vis-à-vis Palestinian rights. The call asks for boycotts of, divestment from, and sanctions against Israel, international corporations that enable and profit off violations of Palestinian rights, and companies that operate on stolen Palestinian land. The three major demands of the BDS movement are: 

1. Ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands. 
2. Securing equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel. 
3. Ensuring the return of Palestinian refugees as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. 

Read the BDS call and view the list of Palestinian civil society organization signatories here. 

In Brief: The BDS call was issued to reinvigorate global solidarity with Palestinians after years of a stalled peace process, intensified Israeli violence, and Israel's construction of the apartheid wall. The movement builds upon renewed grassroots mobilization and increased recognition of Israel’s violations of international law. 

In More Detail: While Palestinians, other Arabs, and people of conscience worldwide called for and engaged in different forms of boycott and divestment consistently since the state of Israel’s establishment in 1948, the 2005 BDS call was issued in response to contemporary realities that required new political strategies. Specifically, Palestinians recognized aggressive attempts to sideline the Palestinian struggle, especially with the suppression of the First Intifada (mass popular protest movement from 1987 to 1991) and onset of the so-called peace process (beginning with backchannel negotiations in 1991 that eventually led to the First Oslo Accord in 1993). The Second Intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005, was yet another expression of the Palestinians’ refusal to have their cause sidelined. For some, the outbreak of the Second Intifada is regarded as a response to the collapse of negotiations between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. For others, the Second Intifada represented the Palestinian popular rejection of the order these negotiations attempted to impose on them in the first place.  

In response to Israel’s heavy-handed response to the Second Intifada, significant political mobilization emerged within Palestine and globally around boycott and divestment from Israel. The beginning of the construction of Israel’s apartheid wall in 2002 sparked global outcry, and in 2004, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that the apartheid wall and Israel’s settlements were illegal under international law. The emergence of organizations like the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in 2004 built the momentum to expand the call for a global, grassroots campaign in solidarity with Palestinians, one that was marked by the issuance of the 2005 BDS call. 

In Brief: The boycott of Israel involves refusing consumer, military, labor, academic, and cultural cooperation with institutions and companies that support or profit from Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. 

In More Detail: There are several facets to the boycott of Israel, including: 

• Consumer boycotts of goods that enable or profit off the denial of Palestinian rights. 
• Military embargoes of Israel, calling on governments and corporations to refrain from providing Israel with weapons and military technology, and to boycott Israeli military exports, which are tested on Palestinians. 
• Labor union boycotts of Israel, calling on trade unions to withhold labor for Israeli goods and for the targets of the boycott. 

The academic boycott urges individuals and institutions to boycott Israeli academic institutions for their deep entanglement and facilitation of Israeli militarization, ethnic cleansing, expansionism, and violence against Palestinians. For more on the rationale behind the academic boycott and why it is necessary in pursuit of justice for Palestinians, click here. 

The cultural boycott calls on artists and cultural institutions worldwide to boycott Israeli cultural institutions for their complicity and role in whitewashing Israel’s abuses of Palestinians. Thousands of artists have signed pledges to boycott Israeli cultural institutions and refuse to perform in Israel. To read more about how cultural boycott targets are identified, click here. 

In Brief: Examples of boycott targets include companies like Hewlett-Packard (HP), Puma, and Sodastream, which profit from or directly support Israel’s surveillance systems, settlement enterprises, and exploitation of Palestinian land and labor. 

In More Detail: Major boycott targets today include: 

• Hewlett-Packard (HP), which provides technology to the Israeli police and for Israel’s Aviv System, used to surveil Palestinians and uphold Israel’s system of apartheid and the denial of freedom of movement to Palestinians. Although HP historically presented itself as a socially conscious corporation, its technologies have been applied to deny Palestinian basic rights, particularly by the use of surveillance and checkpoint technology at the Erez checkpoint against Palestinians from Gaza, as well as in East Jerusalem and West Bank checkpoints. In addition to the consumer boycott, HP has been a divestment target for over a decade for the reasons stated above, and because it provides data storage and services to the Israeli Ministry of Interior’s biometric database. HP split into two companies in 2015—Hewlett Packard Enterprise for cloud storage, servers, and data, and HP for consumer goods—and both are boycott targets as they each facilitate and profit off Palestinian subjugation.  
• Puma, because its distributors and licensees operate in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which is illegal under international law. In December 2023, Puma announced that it will not renew its contract with the Israeli national football team; however, it still sponsors the Israel Football Association, which operates on stolen Palestinian land. 
• Sodastream, which once operated a factory in a West Bank settlement, exploited Palestinian workers, and—despite its sale to PepsiCo in 2018—remains a boycott target because it relocated its West Bank settlement factory to the Negev on ethnically cleansed Palestinian Bedouin land. 

In Brief: Yes, BDS campaigns have prompted companies such as G4S and Veolia to end involvement in Israeli apartheid practices or halt operations in illegal West Bank settlements. 

In More Detail: Yes, a number of companies have changed their practices due to BDS organizing and public pressure campaigns. 

• G4S: A security contractor previously used in managing the Israeli prison system, G4S completely withdrew from the Israeli market in 2023. After years of campaigning by the BDS movement and other human rights groups, G4S divested from the Israeli prison system in 2016. G4S remained a BDS target until 2023, when its parent company, Allied Universal, announced that it would withdraw from Israel’s police academy, which was its last remaining form of involvement in the Israeli market. 
• Veolia: This French corporation ended its business dealings in Israel after being a boycott target for seven years because it operated the Jerusalem Light Rail, which connects Jerusalem with settlements in the West Bank. Veolia conceded that BDS campaigns affected its business and success in earning new contracts in other markets. In 2015, the corporation withdrew from Israel and sold its stake in the consortium that operates the Jerusalem Light Rail. 

In Brief: BDS campaigns take place in universities, faith communities, and trade unions, where students, congregations, and workers organize boycotts, divestment efforts, and labor actions in response to Israeli violations of Palestinian rights.  

In More Detail: BDS campaigns have taken place in a diverse range of arenas. 

Universities have been the site of both boycott and divestment campaigns. In terms of boycotts, students have mobilized to uphold the academic boycott of Israel and to remove products for sale on campus that contribute to Israeli human rights violations. For example: 

• In 2012, a cafe at Evergreen State College announced its decision to end the sale of products from companies complicit in Israeli human rights violations. A representative of the campus cafe said: “We came to a consensus as a collective to support the Palestinian civil society call for BDS because it is directly in line with our mission and statement of principles,” and adding, “we are proud to join this non-violent movement to pressure Israel until it ends its human rights violations against Palestinians.” 
• In 2019, New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis faculty passed a resolution to boycott NYU’s study abroad program in Tel Aviv, citing the state’s discriminatory practices. In a statement, faculty encouraged colleagues in other departments to “pass similar resolutions in the spirit of abiding by NYU’s Code of Ethical Conduct and opposing racial and religious profiling on campus.” citing the state’s discriminatory practices. In a statement, faculty encouraged colleagues in other departments to “pass similar resolutions in the spirit of abiding by NYU’s Code of Ethical Conduct and opposing racial and religious profiling on campus.” 
• Since 2003, there have been over 70 successful campus divestment campaigns in the United States and Canada. Most of these campaigns were symbolic resolutions passed in university student senates. Others took the form of a campus-wide referendum, and some were resolutions within unions affiliated with campus workers. Visit our page on campus divestment campaigns here.  

Faith communities have also been a site of important BDS campaigns since 2004, when the Presbyterian Church USA’s General Assembly voted to begin the process of divesting from five companies complicit in Israeli abuses. This work expanded not only within the Presbyterian Church USA, but in other church decision-making bodies: 

• The United Methodist Church (UMC) voted to divest from the bonds of countries sustaining a military occupation, including Israel, in May 2024. Earlier, in 2016, the UMC had added five Israeli banks to a blacklist, banning Church investments in those banks due to their complicity in the violation of Palestinian rights. 
• The United Church of Christ (UCC) voted to divest from companies that are complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to boycott Israeli settlement goods in 2015. 

Trade unions are another major site for BDS activism, in terms of boycotts, divestment, and direct actions aimed at imposing an arms embargo on Israel. Some even predate the 2005 BDS call: 

• United Auto Workers (UAW) divested from Israel bonds in 1973 after a wildcat strike involving about 2,500 workers, led by Arab American organizers. This strike is remembered as a moment that increased solidarity between Arab and Black workers, particularly between Arab labor and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. 
• United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) endorsed BDS in 2015, as an immediate response to the call from Palestinian workers for trade union solidarity to help stop Israel’s atrocities in its 2014 war on Gaza, and a general decision to remove complicity following Israel’s war crimes in the 51-day assault on Gaza that year. 

See our Timeline of BDS Victories in the United States for more. 

The right to boycott is protected speech under the First Amendment. However, this has not stopped legislators at all levels—federal, state, and local—from passing legislation aiming to ban or criminalize BDS advocacy. 

According to Palestine Legal, over 200 pieces of legislation have been introduced attempting to criminalize BDS activism. While only some of these bills have passed, 38 states have some form of anti-BDS legislation in effect. Federal courts have blocked anti-BDS legislation in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas due to its violation of First Amendment protections.