on boycotting a state 4

Embargoes and sanctions

“The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.” United Nations Charter, article 41. The UN considers embargoes and sanctions to be peaceful measures for resolving disputes between member states (such as “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression”). In practice this range of measures has over time been supplemented by commercial or financial sanctions, embargoes on arms or even medical supplies, cultural or sporting boycotts, etc. But would this work in the case of Israel?

It is clear that, if it were up to those in power in the states that could put pressure on Israel, there are other considerations that take precedence over international law or the fate of Palestina and the Palestinians. To stick to Europe for a moment: geostrategic interests and alignment with US foreign policy and NATO, the shared ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’, pure racism and colonialism, and, of course, money, profit, economic or corporate interests, or whatever else you care to call it. If you look at the arms industry alone, the annual mutual import and export of arms and military technology between Israel and the EU has been running into billions of euros for years.

Not only the industries that do business directly with Israel do not want to see an end to the policy of destruction, which is profitable for them; there is for instance also a great deal of money to be made for banks (and their clients). De Standaard 10 August 2026 reports: “It is not only the oil companies that are profiting from the war in the Middle East, but the banks as well. Fears of higher inflation are pushing up interest rates, which in turn generates higher interest income.

The three Belgian banks that have already published their half-year results (KBC, ING Bank Belgium and Belfius) together posted a pre-tax profit of 3.54 billion euros in the first half of the year. That represents an increase of 13.6 per cent compared with the first half of 2025.

The banks are therefore continuing to perform well. (…) They were helped in this by the war in the Middle East, which fuelled fears of inflation. Investors also bought more derivative products to hedge against market fluctuations.”

Preventing a particular state from continuing its crimes is primarily the responsibility of other states or of international organisations or bodies. And yes, sometimes the states that are committed to this cause are not exactly spotless themselves when it comes to democracy, the rule of law or human rights (think Nicaragua, that joined the genocide complaint before the International Court of Justice; think Turkey, that issued an international arrest warrant against Netanyahu).

Two examples illustrate, moreover,  how the US’s virtually unconditional support for Israel makes it difficult to take action against that state, even if one is otherwise extremely critical of the occupation of Palestina. On 23 December 2023, South Africa started a procedure before the International Court of Justice. It argued that Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip constitutes a violation of the Genocide Convention and asked the Court in The Hague to take measures. The local BDS movement subsequently called for a halt to trade relations with Israel and, first and foremost, for the suspension of coal exports. Coal provides the energy needed to power the Israeli military apparatus and, according to the movement, can be regarded as military support. However, economic sanctions imposed by South Africa could well provoke counter-sanctions, not only from Israel but also from the US. MO* writes: “In 2021, the US imported almost 100 per cent of its chromium from South Africa, and more than 25 per cent of its manganese, titanium and platinum. The US can therefore cause South Africa some harm, but conversely, South Africa can do the same. Despite the political tensions, neither country is likely keen to resolve the conflict through economic means.”

For its part, the Irish government has recently introduced a bill to ban the import of goods produced by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. According to Prime Minister Micheàl Martin, the bill is in line with the ruling of the International Court of Justice that countries must take steps to ensure they do not actively contribute to the perpetuation of the illegal occupation, for example through trade. However, major US-American multinationals such as Google and Apple have their headquarters in Ireland (having a headquarters in Dublin is very attractive from a tax perspective), and if the boycott bill is passed, these companies may be in breach of US laws, as BDS against Israel is prohibited by law in several US states. The law is necessary to exert pressure on Israel and to comply with the International Court of Justice – although, the Prime Minister says, the bill is primarily symbolic.

But then again, “Trump’s Israel tariffs are a BDS dream come true – Israeli tech companies rely heavily on U.S. investors and collaborators, and a cost barrier to access the American market could spell disaster for many, stifling innovation and choking off growth at the very moment the country needs it most”, a columnist on Forward fears. Would the unpredictability of ‘the most pro-Israel president in history’ make “the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement’s dream come true”?

Leaving aside Trump’s capriciousness, the powerful interest groups calling the shots have no interest in scaling back their relations with Israel. Given that ordinary citizens can hardly impose an embargo themselves, it is up to them to make it clear to those interest groups that they do stand to gain – or at least that their current stance is not in their best interests. After all, that is the only thing that matters to them (technologically, economically, politically). The main means available to citizens to achieve this is to make their voices heard, to protest and to keep the spotlight on Palestina.

Protest actions are a visible way of achieving this, but there is also ample scope for legal action. After all, there are sufficient grounds in international law to take states that fail to fulfil their treaty obligations to court. In numerous areas, legal experts have succeeded in recent years in forcing the executive branch to bow to the law. It requires considerable expertise and financial resources to enforce an embargo or sanctions against Israeli authorities through legal channels. Moreover, it is often unclear how court rulings can be enforced if Israel and its allies refuse to recognise the courts or personally intimidate the judges. For the time being, however, a legal ruling remains a powerful symbolic weapon: what is happening here is in direct contradiction to values previously established by democratic institutions, whether through a legislative assembly or in a treaty.

Boycott and divestment

In April 2026 Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was honoured in Antwerpen with an honorary doctorate jointly awarded by three Belgian universities. At long last, you might say – Albanese had been under fire for almost three years because of her investigations into the genocide in Palestina. The rectors may well have praised her commitment to ‘the international legal order’, but apparently they could not do so without also mentioning the brief Palestinian uprising on 7 October 2023 (‘the terrorist attacks’). They praised Albanese’s  meticulous academic research, which has drawn the world’s attention to the occupation, colonisation and repression perpetrated by Israel, and its assessment in the light of international law. But, stated one of the rectors, this decision is in no way directed ‘against the Jews, nor against the State of Israel’.

Not against the Jews – an ethno-religious group – no, of course not. (Although a certain type of politician and media outlet keeps repeating this narrative, you might think nobody falls for that trick anymore. You’d be wrong. It’s still widely used in Germany and by other investors in the genocide, or by people or institutions wishing to present themselves as ‘neutral’. In fact, he accusation of anti-Semitism has become an instrument of control against the Left: “What was previously a debate has now taken on a police-like character”.) But not against the State of Israel? Can you condemn occupation, colonisation and repression without blaming the perpetrator? In fact, the only logical consequence of awarding this honorary doctorate would be to sever entirely the academic ties with Israeli universities. The assertion that the cultural and academic boycotts of Israel defy the democratic principle of free speech or the possibility of mutually understanding or that they punish those who are critical within the affected institutions is beside the point. Research and development in academic institutions play a central role in designing and defending Israel’s military and intelligence machinery. Cultural institutions perpetuate the deception of Israeli democracy. Collaborating with institutions that disregard justice while demonising those who struggle for it is a great disservice to democracy.

On 10 August 2026, 762 cultural organisations and 2336 artists & cultural workers from The Netherlands and Belgium had signed the statement No business as usual – Cultural boycott Israel. They declare:

We, members of the Dutch and Belgian cultural sector, wish to no longer remain bystanders to the ongoing war crimes, crimes against humanity and what has been widely recognized by all authoritative institutions as a genocide of the Palestinian people.

With immediate effect, and in response to sustained calls from Palestinian artists and civil society at large, we declare a cultural boycott of the Israeli state and of all Israeli institutions and companies. Exempted from the boycott are those Israeli institutions and companies that are not complicit in violations of international law and have unequivocally spoken out against genocide, apartheid and the illegal occupation. The boycott is explicitly not directed at individuals or their origins, and therefore not at Jewish people or Israelis as such, but rather at the complicity of the Israeli state and Israeli institutions and companies in grave human rights violations against the Palestinian people.
(…)
This decision to commit to a boycott has not been taken lightly. The cultural sector is guided by the belief that artistic exchange and collaboration ought to make the world a better place, or at the very least, do no harm. There can, however, be no question of continuing business as usual: this impunity must come to an end.

By including the exemption of those who have unequivocally spoken out against Israeli crimes, the signatories may be hoping to avoid problems such as those encountered with acclaimed films like No Other Land or The Sea. In those cases, there was the accusation of normalisation,  the critique that movies, plays, festivals, and other kinds of cultural activities are based on the premise of symmetry between oppressors and oppressed or assume that colonizers and colonized are equally responsible for the ‘Israel/Palestina conflict.’

When directed at the mighty and powerful, the call to disinvest in general falls on deaf ears. In political, economic and military terms, the result is not overwhelming, not to say purely symbolic. But what the movement aims is to place accountability on Israeli institutions (and their allies and partners) that use business, cultural, and academic ties to white-wash Israel’s responsibility for continuing crimes against humanity, and to increase public pressure on Israel, particularly at a time when more and more investors are shunning the country. Maybe boycotts, divestment or sanctions do not have so much to do with morality – but rather with well-understood self-interest. It is therefore important to make it clear to local authorities that condemning Israel is in their well-understood self-interest.

Could the primary aim be to hit the businesses or shareholders directly? It would be nice if things worked out that way, but maybe drawing a moral line and take away the company’s ‘social licence’ might be the best you could hope for politically and on the short term. When a company’s social acceptance is under pressure, it has less scope to lobby and it is subject to greater media scrutiny. Investors might start reconsidering investing in or even withdrawing from dubious companies, consumers and customers can hesitate to buy its products. And you surely have to think in long terms; the shifting of norms is a long-term process.

It is easy to say that individual actions such as conscious consumption or ethical purchasing are nothing more than the expression of personal preferences. That, systemically speaking, these small actions do not outweigh widespread opposition and resistance. That is true, but it does not make them pointless.

As the Dutch poet Remco Campert sang in 1979:

Verzet begint niet met grote woorden
maar met kleine daden

zoals storm met zacht geritsel in de tuin
of de kat die de kolder in z’n kop krijgt
…

(Resistance does not begin with grand words/but with small deeds
such as a storm with a soft rustling in the garden/or the cat getting a bit of a mad idea)

But also: resistance does not begin with grand words, but with small deeds.  And also: resistance does not begin with grand deeds, but with small words.

This has implications for the extent to which you publicise your initiative. Sometimes it is useful or sensible to act on principle without invoking it (you can live an anarchist life without telling the outside world that you are an anarchist). But in the case of a boycott of Israeli goods or services, the material impact of such actions is often so small that the symbolic value is what matters most. The New York food co-operative Park Slope Food Coop, for example, understood this well. Removing Israeli products from their range makes little practical difference, but the decision to do so has led to extensive media coverage and renewed discussions about BDS. And, equally importantly, Zionists do indeed feel affected by such a decision and the publicity surrounding it.

What now?

BDS is not a response to the actual devastation of Palestina and the Palestinian people. The initiative exists since 2005 and the idea behind it is not to stop the actual genocide, but to remedy the fact that “since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate, and effective remedies; and (…) that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights, and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine”.

What did change as a result of the relentless Israeli campaign since October 2023 is that domestic Palestinian resistance has been virtually eradicated. Now that the exclusion of the non-Jewish population from economic and political decision-making is virtually complete – and that, at any rate, is the aim of those in charge in Tel Aviv – the responsibility for the struggle falls largely on Palestinians living outside the territory, and on international solidarity.

Boycott, divestment, sanctions target organisations with links to Israel, but at least as important is the aim to hold one’s own government or representative bodies to account when they collaborate with the Zionist state. In this sense, BDS actions also have a moral and political significance for domestic purposes: they draw your own governments’ attention to the gap between the universal values they claim to uphold (democracy, equality, freedom, …) and the way in which they support the violent contradicting of those values in Palestina. That’s part of the symbolic significance of the campaign; BDS is also a struggle to bring back into the spotlight, or to keep them there, the universal values that the West claims to defend.

“I believe that Palestina is a test for Western democracies. It leads to Kafkaesque situations in which states commit themselves to the rule of law and moral standards, only to find that they have failed completely, both morally and politically, when confronted with the genocide in Gaza. They even go so far as to turn against their own citizens and elected representatives in order to maintain their political, material, economic, geostrategic or even ideological support for Israel”, said French member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan. It may be a bit harsh to put it this way, but supporting BDS is also good for you. Systems whose hegemony is under threat might tend to shift towards a more authoritarian regime, by crippling critical organisations and making it more difficult for citizens to access the courts, and/or by discrediting the judiciary or even circumventing it altogether. An open commitment to solidarity with Palestina – even if its immediate impact is barely measurable – does help to foster a culture of resistance and organisation. Given the political and social developments that are unfolding in full force here too, that will stand you in good stead.

A characteristic feature of the protests against those complicit in the Zionist policy of extermination is that they are driven by a large number of small organisations: protests at government buildings, blockades and ‘red lines’ targeting arms manufacturers and other brokers in mass murder, trade union initiatives in the workplace, boycotts of Israeli products by food co-operatives, … In this way, the actions against the genocidal regime in Israel (and against its local representatives and collaborators) are linked to the struggles people are waging in other areas, but that are driven by the same ideals. And then what do you see haunting there? The spectre of intersectionality! Discussions on this subject would lead too far afield here (see also, incidentally, the desperate reactions in the corporate media whenever ‘climate activists’ start speaking out about Palestina), but, as it happens, this is precisely what Zionists are afraid of.

“If you want to understand why the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS, has gained so much ground in the past two years, look no further than intersectionality, the study of related systems of oppression. Intersectionality holds that various forms of oppression — racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and homophobia — constitute an intersecting system of oppression. In this worldview, a transcendent white, male, heterosexual power structure keeps down marginalized groups. Uniting oppressed groups, the theory goes, strengthens them against the dominant power structure.” It’s the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs who writes this at the start of his plea for pro-Israeli intersectional strategies.

In another sense, too, it is crucial that visible actions against Israel continue. In a world where the genocide can be followed live on a daily basis on (social) media, expressions of solidarity – however small they may sometimes be – are also visible world-wide on screens, large and small. (This is why initiatives such as Crips for eSims for Gaza, which provide e-SIMs for the Palestinian population, are so important.) In numerous interviews, Palestinians (whether in the diaspora or not) continue to explain how expressions of solidarity give them a boost and help them to sustain their resistance.

Finally, any potential commitment to BDS must not make you forget that in occupied Palestina specific, individual crimes are taking place, carried out by specific, individual, identifiable people.  The arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Gallant has, to date, practically been the only serious international attempt to bring the Israeli regime to justice for the genocide in Gaza. But isn’t it strange that people, who could with good reason be suspected of war crimes in Palestina, are able to go and support their football team in Amsterdam, or attend a dance festival in Belgium, or give lectures in Argentina or New York, or travel to Italy to ‘decompress’? Just as for boycott, divestment, sanctions in general, one cannot rely on those in power to take action of their own accord against the Zionist regime, so too will constant pressure be needed on national and international judicial systems to prosecute individual war criminals. Initiating such prosecutions is precisely what an organisation such as The Hind Rajab Foundation undertakes.

Interested in joining the worldwide Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement? See https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved-boycott and https://bdsmovement.net/campaigns and for its recent impact https://bdsmovement.net/news/The-Power-Of-BDS-Our-Impact-So-Far-In-2026