BDS movement

Sumud’s BDS Finland working group shares information about the movement and its boycotts and organises various campaigns in Finland. Read more about the Apartheid Free Zone campaign, Israeli products out of shops campaign, Justice Not Arms campaign and cultural and academic boycott.

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @boikotoiapartheidia

Facebook: www.facebook.fi/bds.suomi

BDS is a global movement led by Palestinians that started in 2005 to peacefully cut off economic, political and cultural support to the apartheid Israeli government. BDS stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions. BDS is based on a simple principle: Palestinians have the same human rights as everyone else. 

BDS is an inclusive, anti-racist human rights movement that opposes all forms of discrimination, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

The BDS movement is inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the boycotts that accompanied it. The BDS movement was launched by 170 Palestinian trade unions, refugee networks, women’s organisations, the Popular Solidarity Committee and other Palestinian civil society bodies.

Read more about the international BDS movement here.

The demands and objectives of the BDS movement

The Palestinians’ BDS calls for non-violent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law and meets three demands:

International law recognises the West Bank including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as occupied by Israel. As part of its military occupation, Israel steals land and forces Palestinians into ghettos, surrounded by checkpoints, settlements and watchtowers and an illegal apartheid Wall. Israel has imposed a medieval siege on Gaza , turning it into the largest open air prison in the world. Israel also regularly carries out large-scale assaults on Gaza that are widely condemned as constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity.

One-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Palestinians who remained inside the armistice lines after 1948. They are subjected to a system of racial discrimination enshrined in more than 50 laws that impact every aspect of their lives. The Israeli government continues to forcibly displace Palestinian communities in Israel from their land. Israeli leaders routinely and openly incite racial violence against them.

Since its violent establishment in 1948 through the ethnic cleansing of more than half of the indigenous people of Palestine, Israel has set out to control as much land and uproot as many Palestinians as it can. As a result of this systematic forced displacement, there are now more than 7.25 million Palestinian refugees. They are denied their right to return to their homes simply because they are not Jewish.

Boycotts, divestment and sanctions 

BDS stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions. 

Boycott

The aim of boycotts is to undermine the apartheid Israeli regime by denying it economic, political and social support, targeting businesses, sports, cultural and academic institutions that support Israeli human rights abuses. 

Divestment 

Banks, local governments, churches, pension funds, universities and other institutions are called upon to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and from all Israeli and international companies that support Israeli apartheid. 

Sanctions 

Governments are pressured to fulfil their legal obligations not to support and assist Israeli apartheid. Governments must ban business with Israel’s illegal settlements and stop arms sales and trade agreements.

What to boycott? 

The BDS movement’s strategy is to target boycotts, pressure and sanctions at specific companies and products in order to maximize their impact. The BDS movement focuses on companies that have a clear and direct role in Israel’s war crimes and human rights abuses. 

A targeted boycott can be used to influence the financial situation of a company. If a large proportion of consumers or stakeholders refrain from buying a company’s products or services, the company will be under financial pressure to change its operations. It can be challenging for a consumer to boycott thousands of different brands, so a targeted boycott also makes it easier to boycott every day. When everyone boycotts the same products, the impact is greater. 

Targeted consumer boycotts have led retailers around the world to remove from sale products from companies that support and profit from Israeli crimes. Many Israeli exporters have complained that it has become more difficult to sell their products.

Targets are in four sections:

Consumer boycott targets

The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands carefully selected due to the company’s proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.

Produce from Israel 

Products made in Israel strengthen the apartheid Israeli economy and may also contain raw materials from illegal settlements. The label stating the country of origin can be misleading, as raw materials from illegal settlements may also have been labelled as coming from Israel.

Brand

  • Moroccanoil brand hair and skin care products
  • AHAVA brand skin care products
  • SodaStream brand products
  • Omega brand craft supplies (sold in S-Group stores)

Individual products from different brands

  • Santa Maria Paprika spice
  • Urtekram Organic Sweet Paprika spice
  • King Solomon medjoul dates 
  • Fresh medjoul dates from the fruit and vegetable department 
  • Avocados
  • Citrus fruits (e.g. orange, pomelo, grapefruit, blood grapefruit)
  • Pomegranate
  • Hälsans Kök minced soy
  • Lupilu baby wipes (Lidl)
  • Dorot crushed garlic (frozen)
  • MyHeritage DNA service
  • Biomed strawberry flavoured B12 drops 50 ml
  • Biomed allergy tested vitamin A drops 40 ml
  • Biomed active folate drops 40 ml
  • Tiny Love baby products
  • Ratiopharm pharmacy products

Ahava cosmetics is an Israeli company that has its production site, visitor center, and main store in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Carrefour-Israel has supported Israeli soldiers partaking in the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with gifts of personal packages. In 2022, it entered a partnership with the Israeli company Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, both of which are involved in grave violations against the Palestinian people.

SodaStream products are made in Israel. The company has discriminated against its Palestinian employees and has been involved in the displacement of Palestinian Bedouins from the Naqab.

HP Inc. and HP Enterprise provide and maintain IT infrastructure for the Israeli military, prisons, and police. HP Inc. (USA) offers services, for example, to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Smotrich. HP Enterprise provides the technology that enables Israel to maintain its population registry, referred to as the “backbone of apartheid.”

The U.S.-based RE/MAX markets and sells properties in Israel’s illegal settlements, built on land stolen from Palestinians. Several properties are for sale or rent in West Bank residential areas that are exclusively accessible to Israeli Jews.

The German company Siemens is the main contractor for the Euro-Asia Interconnector project, an underwater electricity cable between Israel and the EU, designed to connect Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to Europe.

The U.S.-based Chevron exploits gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean, which apartheid Israel has claimed as its own. Chevron’s billions in revenue bolster Israel’s war chest and apartheid system, while also worsening the climate crisis and the siege on Gaza. Chevron operates thousands of gas stations worldwide under the Chevron, Caltex, and Texaco brand names.

The French insurance giant AXA invests in Israeli banks that finance war crimes and the theft of Palestinian land and natural resources.

Organic boycott targets

These boycotts originated from collective action and have received support from the BDS movement. In Finland, Wolt has been chosen as a local boycott target.

Wolt operates in East Jerusalem, delivering food to and from illegal settlements. Through its activities, the company supports and profits from Israel’s apartheid system. Wolt has been selected by BDS Finland as a local boycott target and approved by the BDS National Committee (BNC).

The Israel branches of these major corporations have, among other actions, provided free meals to Israeli soldiers and supported the ongoing genocide in other ways. These companies have not disavowed the actions of their Israeli branches or condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza.

WIX is a large Israeli publicly traded company worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As a website building service, WIX relies on free internet access, which is denied to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

Coca-Cola Israel operates a regional distribution center and cooling houses in illegal Israeli settlements. Furthermore, its subsidiary, Tabor Winery, produces wines from grapes sourced from occupied land in settlements in the West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights.

Divestment and exclusion targets

The BDS movement works to pressure governments, institutions, investment funds, city councils, etc. to exclude from procurement contracts and investments and to divest from, as the case may be, as many complicit companies as practical, especially arms companies and banks.

Elbit Systems is apartheid Israel’s largest arms company. It “field-tests” its weapons on Palestinians, including in Israel’s ongoing genocidal war in Gaza. On top of building killer drones, Elbit makes surveillance technology for Israel’s apartheid wall, checkpoints and Gaza fence, enabling apartheid. The US and EU use Elbit’s technology to militarize their borders, violating refugee and indigenous peoples’ rights.

Intel has announced that it will invest $25 billion in apartheid Israel as Israel’s #GazaGenocide continues, signaling its commitment to bolstering apartheid. The company’s first development center outside the US was opened in Haifa in 1974. For decades, Intel has invested in apartheid Israel. Its plant at “Qiryat Gat” is built on Palestinian land within the boundaries of the Palestinian village of Iraq al Manshiya, which was ethnically cleansed and razed to the ground and then replaced by the Israeli settlement of Qiryat Gat. 

Machinery from HD Hyundai (South Korea), Volvo (Sweden/China), CAT (US), and JCB (UK) has been used by Israel in the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians through the destruction of their homes, farms, and businesses, as well as the construction of illegal settlements on land stolen from them, a war crime under international law.

Barclays Bank (UK) holds more than £1 billion in shares of, and provides more than £3bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology have been used in Israel’s armed violence against Palestinians.

Transport firm CAF builds and services the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), a tram line that serves Israel’s illegal settlements in Jerusalem. CAF benefits from Israel’s war crimes on stolen Palestinian land.

US fossil fuel multinational Chevron is the main international corporation extracting gas claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron and Chevron-owned Noble Energy generate billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system as well as exacerbating the climate crisis.

Amnesty International has documented high-resolution CCTV cameras made by Hikvision (China) installed in residential areas and mounted to Israeli military infrastructure for surveillance of Palestinians. Some of these models, according to Hikvision’s own marketing, can plug into external facial recognition software.

Amnesty International has identified cameras made by TKH Security (Netherlands) used by Israel for surveillance of Palestinians. TKH provides Israeli police with surveillance technology that is used to entrench apartheid. 

Cisco knowingly provides Israel with technology that is deployed in its grave human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Cisco provides the technological infrastructure to automate apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) through targeted surveillance systems.


Pressure targets

The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these targets. This includes boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, and social media pressure.

In May 2021, as the Israeli military bombed homes, clinics, and schools in Gaza and threatened to push Palestinian families from their homes in occupied Jerusalem, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. By supporting Israeli apartheid with vital technologies, Amazon and Google are directly implicated in its entire system of oppression, including its unfolding genocide in Gaza. Join the #NoTechForApartheid campaign. 

Airbnb (US), Booking.com (Netherlands) and Expedia (US) all offer rentals in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land. 

The Disney-owned Marvel Studios (US) is promoting in the next Captain America film a “superhero” that personifies apartheid Israel. Both companies are therefore complicit in “anti-Palestinian racism, Israeli propaganda, and the glorification of settler-colonial violence against Indigenous people,” as Palestinian cultural organizations have stated.

Teva is an Israeli pharmaceutical company and the world’s largest generic drug manufacturer. Teva benefits from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands allowing the company to exploit the captive Palestinian market. 

Cisco knowingly provides Israel with technology that is deployed in its grave human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Cisco provides the technological infrastructure to automate apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) through targeted surveillance systems.