Why BDS Should Target All Israeli Institutions

by PETER BELMONT

The BDS movement and its attack on SodaStream and Scarlett Johansson have been much in the news.

The BDS movement (the movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli businesses and institutions) aims at ending the occupation, the settlements, Israeli discrimination against Palestinian Arabs, and Israel’s long-continuing exclusion from return to its territory of the Palestinians expelled and/or exiled by Israeli forces from that territory in the 1948 war.

Some people, although they wish to see an end to the occupation and settlements, believe that BDS should target only institutions that directly support the occupation and/or settlements. They want settlements-related business to be “disentangled” from other Israeli businesses and institutions.

For reasons given below, I believe that this view would lead to a sadly truncated “movement”, shorn of most of its potential power to effect change—that BDS should target all Israeli businesses and institutions.

The trouble involved in “disentangling” settlements businesses from other Israeli businesses is worth noting. Many businesses work on both sides of the “green-line”, Israel’s boundary from 1950-1967. How can one boycott part of a business?