Victories come thick and fast, despite "war" on BDS

It seems like no sooner did the British government issue its new regulations aimed at “banning” boycotts of Israel than the move backfired. “BDS,” the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, protesters declared in response, “is here to stay.”

There was immediate talk of defying any ban, with civil disobedience if necessary. That may not be needed: while the full facts are still being debated, according to lawyers who spoke to anti-poverty charity War on Want, “there is nothing new in the new procurement guidance aside from some overblown rhetoric clearly intended to scare campaigners.”

The “BDS ban” in fact is no real ban at all. It has essentially restated existing legislation, campaigners say. This is likely to be tested in courts, however. Although Israeli campaigns of “lawfare” (tying campaigners up using spurious litigation in courts around the world) have often proven fruitless, even disastrous in the past, it seems Israel’s supporters have not given up the strategy.

Such litigation can be costly for BDS activists, who are almost all volunteers and have little in the way of serious funding to defend against such cases. Local councils do have more serious resources to defend their democratic mandates. But with ever increasingly budget cuts, thanks to Conservative austerity, they may prove unwilling to fight back against such cases: they’d often rather avoid them altogether if the popular pressure is not enough.

However, what Israel is finding out to its cost, is that such bullying and intimidation tactics are not likely to win in the long term. Indeed, even on the immediate evidence, they are losing in the short term too.

Another reaction that came pretty soon after Conservative Cabinet Minister Matthew Hancock’s unveiling of the new anti-BDS “guidelines” at a press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem was yet another BDS victory.

Global security company G4S, which is one of the world’s largest employers with over 623,000 staff, finally announced it would quit Israel altogether within two years time. This is after years of G4S being a prime target of the BDS movement. G4S Israel operates in some Israeli prisons and provides equipment to Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.

The Financial Times reported that the withdrawal will amount to the company “extracting itself from reputationally damaging work.”

As Ali Abunimah reported, the G4S announcement is only the latest such victory for the BDS movement, with waste management and water firm Veolia, telecoms company Orange and cement maker CRH all deciding to flee the country in the wake of high-profile, years long BDS campaigns.

Unethical corporations are discovering there is a price to pay in their bottom lines if dedicated campaigners work hard enough to make sure that they do so.

However, the BDS campaign against G4S is not over. The BDS National Committee in Palestine said that the campaign would continue until G4S fully withdrew from from the country. The company has a history of making similar announcements and not following through, so it’s important to make sure they are still made to pay for their complicity with Israeli war crimes and apartheid.

Despite all the threats against BDS campaigners, despite the crackdowns against dissident Israeli supporters of BDS, despite the promises to use spies and hackers in their “war” against the boycott, Israel and its supporters seems to be able to do little to curb the movement for justice in Palestine. The ball has started rolling now.

The new British government regulations appear very much to be more about appearances, and being able to say to their Israel allies that they are “doing something” against BDS, than about effectively stopping the movement. Legislation can be a very crude instrument, and that would certainly be the case here. But there seems very little new that could actually stop activists. Even if more legislation, an expected ruling against local government divesting their pension schemes from unethical companies, does go through in the face of protest, if precedent is any guide BDS activists may yet prove to be inventive in coming up with new and creative ways to make sure Israel is the target of more forms of boycott.

Ultimately, it remains to be seen whether or not BDS is “here to stay”. Repression certainly has an effect, and can sometimes prove effective in stopping or rolling back progress. Especially as the price increases. But repression can have a backlash effect too. It can cause disgust and outrage, even informing people about the issues who had previously been unaware or under-motivated. That seems to be what is happening here. Conservative government repression against the very tactic of boycott, is bringing the BDS movement further allies, groups working on other issues who use the same tactic.

Israel is correct to fear BDS, because Israel fears anything that has the potential to help end its oppression.

Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who lives in London and an associate editor with The Electronic Intifada.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.