on boycotting a state 3

So, at last, this leads to the questions at the heart of it all. What is this ‘boycott, divestment, sanctions’ all about? Against whom exactly should they be directed? And by whom? To what end? And by what means? And does it make any sense at all? Or have any effect? That’s how the second episode of on boycotting a state ended.

Officially, the destruction of Gaza has ended with a ‘peace deal’, which in fact means that the genocide can go on, but without too much fuss, and now on the West Bank as well. Israel keeps bombing entire neighbourhoods, refugee tent camps, residential buildings, health care or schooling facilities and places of worship, targeting adults and children, babies included. Foreign journalists aren’t allowed in, unless embedded with the occupying forces, while local reporters are still being murdered. Humanitarian aid is systematically blocked. On 27 August, UN Web TV broadcast a report by Athena Rayburn, executive director of the Association of International Development Agencies, which represents over a hundred humanitarian and development NGOs in the occupied Palestinian territory. She tells the UN Security Council that Israel is imposing sweeping restrictions on humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Items including scissors, crutches, wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs are being rejected as “dual-use,” while medical specialists face entry restrictions and severe limits on engine oil have pushed its price 45-fold, leaving aid operations at “an absolute breaking point.” Rayburn also states Israel has blocked food items including watermelons and onions under un unpublished “humanitarian policy,” while deregistering more than thirty international aid organisations and restricting access to at least eighty-five water points, schools and health clinics. On the West Bank, meanwhile, olive groves are set alight and livestock stolen, pogroms and ethnic cleansing are systematic, while politicians are openly discussing the complete colonisation and Judaization of Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem. Simply watch The Electronic Intifada,  Quds News Network, Mondoweiss or The Cradle for a few days. Quite shocking.

But let’s not split hairs. Didn’t German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declare already on 10 October 2025: “After more than two years of war in Gaza, a ceasefire has now been agreed. This is good news for the people of the Middle East and far beyond. I would like to thank President Trump for his peace initiative. (…) Thanks are also due to the Israeli Government, which has paved the way for peace. (…) Firstly, we stand ready to assist over the coming days with medical and psychological support for the released hostages. Secondly, the Federal Government will immediately make available additional funding amounting to 29 million euros for humanitarian aid. Further measures will follow. Thirdly, together with Egypt, we will convene an international reconstruction conference for Gaza. The focus will be on the most pressing needs, such as the reconstruction of water and energy supplies and the provision of medical care.” Etcetera, and so on, blah blah blah. Reconstruct while they are demolishing.

Many national leaders breathe a similar sigh of relief at the fading away, not of the suffering of the Palestinian population, but of the attention that had to be paid to it. Declaring an end to the ‘conflict’ simply consigns to the past a host of thorny issues: allegations of genocide, accusations of complicity, violations of international law, … What politicians celebrate is a change of subject and the removal of the problem.  Let’s talk about something else, now that the negotiations have been successful and we have a Board of Peace with a chairman declaring: “This meeting today is proof that with determined leadership, nothing is impossible. When I took office, the war in Gaza was raging — the war in Gaza is over.” The media, which mostly covered Israeli mass murder reluctantly, are only too happy now to move on from a subject that caused them discomfort, unmanageable tensions, and shameful self-censorship towards summer issues. With things the way they are, there’s really no point in talking about, let alone demonstrating for, Palestina. So, why still bother with boycott, divestment or sanctions?

A lot of people are pretty outraged by the images of the suffering and hardship endured by starving and injured Palestinians, and by the hatred and violence of the Zionist settlers. Humane reactions like indignation, and the compassion that can come from it, are deeply moral. Laila Gutknecht resumes it eloquently in a personal text on Allegra lab: “Since October 2023, I have been exposed to images and videos from Gaza that I will never forget. Although I tried to protect myself from the ‘worst images,’ this was not always possible. What I saw was an unimaginable scale of violence and destruction. Parents searching for their children in the rubble. Injured children looking for their parents in the streets. A girl running through a refugee camp amidst burning tents, unaware that her entire family was dead. A father lifting his decapitated child from the fire. Babies in incubators without power because hospitals had been bombed. The many people carrying child corpses wrapped in white cloth kept haunting me in my dreams. My relatives and friends often asked me why I kept watching, since I could do nothing to change the situation. But for some reasons, I needed to see. If I could not act, at least I had to bear witness.”

This kind of moral reaction expresses what you believe in – the fundamental principles that guide your actions to achieve a good life for yourself and for others. Endless discussions can be held on this subject, but for the sake of simplicity, consider what the moral philosophers Agnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér wrote about it around 1990. For them, the ultimate standard for moral judgement boils down to the universal values of life and freedom, combined with the conditional value of equality. In other words: equal life chances for all and equal freedom for all. According to Heller and Fehér, how this should or could look in practice, or how it might be achieved, must be assessed against the procedural virtues of a genuinely democratic and liberal order and against a number of positive principles such as tolerance, recognition and solidarity. Not a bad yardstick by which to judge how things stand, both in occupied Palestina and in your own society in Western Europe.

There’s nothing wrong of course with indignation or a moral reaction. But if you do not wish to remain entrenched in that approach – in an attitude that all too easily can result in feelings of powerlessness or resignation – then you must take the step towards political action. That is to say: engage in the struggle for power.

Now don’t think of yourself as powerless. Consider power as the (continually changing) outcome of series of acts that express relations of force. All people possess forces they can bring into practice. They know things, and because they know, they can identify and name what they experience. And by calling experiences by a specific name, and acting accordingly, they develop self-consciousness.  The flexible or fluid identity that they so constitute helps them strengthen their position in force relations – with others, with governing bodies, with the media or school or the workplace. So power is not abstract. It exists in actu, through deeds; power reproduces itself, exactly because the individuals it produces are always in the position to experience it and to exercise it themselves. Every manifestation of self-consciousness, how futile it may be, is an act of resistance against the forces that seek to define the situation.

And resistance starts with being aware of what is being said and how, and by taking care not only of what you say, but of how you say it. Words are important. I know this, I can this, I am me – this is the basis to engage in power relations, in struggles for power, and thus in political action.

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions

Now take a look then at how this relates to Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. Obviously, the logic thing to do first is considering what the BDS movement itself has to say about it – after all, they are the Palestinians who have called on the world to support them in their struggle.

From the BDS Call, 9 July 2005:

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.

These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall

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

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

Israel maintains a regime of settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation over the Palestinian people. This is only possible because of international support. Governments fail to hold Israel to account, while corporations and institutions across the world help Israel to oppress Palestinians.

Because those in power refuse to act to stop this injustice, Palestinian civil society has called for a global citizens’ response of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.

What are the core elements of this Call?

First of all, it is because ‘those in power’ refuse to stop the Israeli regime of settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation over the Palestinian people, that the latter have to call for a global citizens’ response of solidarity. Second, civil society organisations and ‘people of conscience’ are asked to target Israel through initiatives of boycott and divestment. And third, the same ‘people of conscience’ are asked to pressure their respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions.

So, two targets: actors (institutions and corporations) which, directly or indirectly, are engaged in or represent the Israeli regime of settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation – and, at home, the people’s own governments and authorities, which should in fact hold Israel to account.

More about embargoes and sanctions  and boycott and divestment on https://rivieren-en-meren.online/2026/08/30/on-boycotting-a-state-4/