[Marxism] The Israel Boycott is Biting

[Louis Proyect]

Counterpunch Weekend Edition
May 1 - 3, 2009
"When Companies Begin to Lose Money, They Start to Listen"
The Israel Boycott is Biting

By NADIA HIJAB

On May 4, protesters will greet Motorola shareholders, already 
disgruntled by the company's losses, as they arrive for their annual 
meeting at the Rosemont Theater in Chicago, Illinois.

The protest, organized by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, 
is part of a drive to "Hang Up On Motorola" until it ends sales of 
communications and other products that support Israel's military 
occupation of Palestinian land.

Inside the meeting, the Presbyterian, United Methodist and other 
churches will urge shareholders to support their resolution, which calls 
for corporate standards grounded in international law. Doing the right 
thing could also reduce the risk of "consumer boycotts, divestment 
campaigns and lawsuits."

Although Motorola executives deny it, such risks must have played a part 
in their decision to sell the department making bomb fuses shortly after 
Human Rights Watch teams found shrapnel with Motorola serial numbers at 
some of the civilian sites bombed by Israel in its December-January 
assault on Gaza.

The US protests are part of a growing global movement that has taken 
international law into its own hands because governments have not. And, 
especially since the attacks on Gaza, the boycotts have been biting. 
There are three reasons why.

First, boycotts enable ordinary citizens to take direct action. For 
instance, the New York group Adalah decided to target diamond merchant 
Lev Leviev, whose profits are plowed into colonizing the West Bank. 
During the Christmas season, they sing carols with the words creatively 
altered to urge shoppers to boycott his Madison Avenue store.

The British group Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine 
teamed up with Adalah NY and others to exert public pressure on the 
British government regarding Leviev. The British Embassy in Tel Aviv 
recently cancelled plans to rent premises from Leviev's company 
Africa-Israel.

There are other results. Activists in Britain have targeted the 
supermarket chain Tesco to stop the sales of Israeli goods produced in 
settlements. In a video of one such action -- over 38,000 YouTube views 
to date -- Welsh activists load up a trolley with settlement products 
and push it out of the shop without paying.

All the while, they calmly explain to the camera just what they are 
doing and why. They talk away as they pour red paint over the produce, 
and as British Bobbies quietly lead them away to a police van.

The result of such consumer boycotts? A fifth of Israeli producers have 
reported a drop in demand since the assault on Gaza, particularly in 
Britain and Scandinavia.

The second reason boycotts are more effective is the visible role of 
Jewish human rights advocates, making it harder for Israel to argue that 
these actions are anti-Semitic.

For example, British architect Abe Hayeem, an Iraqi Jew, describes in a 
passionate column in The Guardian exactly how Leviev tramples on 
Palestinian rights, and warns Israeli architects involved in settlements 
that they will be held to account by their international peers.

In the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace has led an ongoing campaign 
to stop Caterpillar from selling bulldozers to Israel, which militarizes 
them and uses them in home demolitions and building the separation wall.

The third, key, reason for the growing success of this global movement 
is the determined leadership of Palestinian civil society. The spark was 
lit at the world conference against racism in Durban in 2001. In 2004, 
Palestinian civil society launched an academic and cultural boycott that 
is having an impact.

In 2005, over 170 Palestinian civil society coalitions, organizations, 
and unions, from the occupied territories, within Israel, and in exile 
issued a formal call for an international campaign of boycott, 
divestment, and sanctions (BDS) until Israel abides by international 
law. The call sets out clear goals for the movement and provides a 
framework for action.

In November 2008, Palestinian NGOs helped convene an international BDS 
conference in Bilbao, Spain, to adopt common actions. This launched a 
"Derail Veolia" campaign. That French multinational corporation, 
together with another French company, Alstom, is building a light 
railway linking East Jerusalem to illegal settlements.

The light rail project was cited by the Swedish national pension fund in 
its decision to exclude Alstom from its $15 billion portfolio, and by 
the Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council in its decision not to 
consider further Veolia's bid for a $1.9 billion waste improvement plan. 
There were active grassroots campaigns in both areas.

Other hits: Veolia lost the contract to operate the city of Stockholm 
subway and an urban network in Bordeaux. Although these were reportedly 
"business decisions" there were also activist campaigns in both places. 
The Galway city council in Ireland decided to follow Stockholm's 
example. Meanwhile, Connex, the company that is supposed to operate the 
light rail, is being targeted by activists in Australia.

The "Derail Veolia" campaign has been the movement's biggest success to 
date. Veolia and its subsidiaries are estimated to have lost as much as 
$7.5 billion.

As one of the BDS movement leaders, Omar Barghouti, put it, "When 
companies start to lose money, then they listen." Perhaps governments 
will too.

Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.