Pressuring Israel to stop oppressing Palestinians

There have been multiple calls by rights groups to sanction and boycott Israel

The use of political and economic pressure to compel belligerent states to comply with international norms is not a novel or untested idea. Given the disturbingly unproportional use of Israeli force against Palestinians, time is ripe for creating more pressure to compel Israel to cease its ongoing oppression of Palestinians.

A Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was started 20 years ago by Palestinian activists in the bid to cut off international support which enables Israeli suppression of Palestinians. Divestment from South Africa, by powerful countries like the US, had played an important role in helping end apartheid. In the case of Israel, however, the US and many other powerful nations, such as Britain and Germany, are firmly committed to supporting Israel, and they reject the description of Israel as an apartheid state. Those who refuse to describe Israel as an apartheid state claim that Israeli restrictive policies toward Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are prompted by security concerns instead of racism. They claim that Palestinian citizens of Israel enjoy the same rights as all other Israeli citizens, such as the ability to vote, and run for office. Yet, a growing number of international experts and human rights groups have concluded that Israel does indeed engage in institutionalised racism against Palestinians, which can be described as apartheid.

Sanctioning Israel is not easy. Even though Israel has been heavily criticised by the UN Secretary General and other specialised UN agencies, the US continues to block any serious attempts to penalise Israel within the UN Security Council.

Major Arab states like Egypt and Jordan also have longstanding peace treaties with Israel. The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have recently normalised ties with Israel. But it may now be difficult for Saudi Arabia to follow suit, especially as Jordan and Turkey along with eight other non-Muslim countries have withdrawn their ambassadors from Israel, due to its latest assault on the Palestinians.

Nearly 30 countries, including Pakistan, do not recognise Israel as a sovereign state. But nearly twice as many do not recognise Palestine as a state. China and India have in fact developed closer economic and military ties with Israel over recent years. India, which has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinians cause, even abstained in the UN General Assembly vote demanding a humanitarian truce in Gaza while 120 countries voted in favour of it.

There have been calls by rights groups to sanction Israel, to cease trade with it, or to at least place an embargo on providing weapons and military aid to it. However, many powerful nations, including the US and major European states, remain adamant to continue supporting the Israeli military as well.

Some prominent artists and academics refuse to go to Israel. However, Israel ignores or brushes off such singular acts of protests as they hardly amount to the country’s cultural isolation.

BDS hopes to convince governments to divest from the Israeli economy, and to boycott not just Israeli products, but companies which do business with Israel. Piecemeal efforts have also been made to ban specific Israeli products made in occupied settlements. In the past, BDS efforts have led Luxembourg, New Zealand and Norway to divest from Israel. Whether more countries will follow suit after the latest Israeli assault on Palestinians remains to be seen.

Israel offers a lucrative market for numerous international companies. Even countries that do not recognise Israel have not admonished multinational computing and software firms, large beverage companies, international food retail chains and several automotive giants which allegedly enabled Israeli suppression of Palestinians.

Till last year, BDS seemed to be fighting a losing battle. One wonders if the BDS movement can now harness widespread international dismay over what is happening in Gaza to create sufficient momentum to compel Israel to rethink its attitude towards Palestinians. While the odds of BDS succeeding are still not great, they offer no less hope than the fragmented diplomatic maneuvers to secure a ceasefire, and to then resolve this festering problem.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2023.

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