The United Nation from Below
The dilemmas of today’s activists of the global
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
Michelle Bokking (10606998)
Master thesis Conflict Resolution and Governance Graduate School of Social Sciences
University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Dr. Martijn Dekker Second reader: Dr. Anne de Jong Date of submission: 29 June 2018
Acknowledgements
To all the wonderful and courageous BDS activists that I have had the privilege to interview. Thank you for your time, your kindness and your stories. Without your help, this research would not have been possible. I tried to the best of my ability to do justice to your stories.
Dr. Martijn Dekker, thank you for your guidance and valuable advice, for your enthusiasm and your encouraging words throughout this project; you have my gratitude. Also, thank you, dr. Anne de Jong, for taking the time to be the second reader and to assess this thesis.
Abstract
After decades of failed Palestinian resistance and the inability of governmental bodies to intervene and find a solution to lasting peace, all that remained for those who opposed Israel’s occupation was to create a ‘United Nations from Below’. This research addresses the question as to how activists of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement engage in strategic interaction with other players to persuade the Israeli government to comply with international law. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted to get insights into how different forms of activism can contribute to change and transformation in Palestine and to gain a deeper understanding of the personal experiences of BDS activists. Generally, little attention has been paid to the importance of emotions in the scientific field. Therefore, to study the BDS movement and its activists, a cultural-emotional approach in terms of strategy is employed. This study argues that the BDS movement proves to be a relevant case for this alternative framework in which the structure versus agency debate can almost completely be incorporated without discarding the more traditional social movements theories.
Table of content
List of abbreviations 6
1. Introduction 7
2. Theoretical framework and definitions of concepts 10
2.1 Social movements and transnational advocacy networks 10 2.2 Rational choice theory and resource mobilization 11 2.3 Political opportunity structures and contentious politics 13 2.4 The culturalist approach: framing and mobilization 13 2.5 Strategic action: getting other people to do what you want 15
2.6 The repertoires of protest 17
3. Research methodology 19
3.1 Research design 19
3.2 Research methods 20
3.2.1 Data collection 20
3.2.2 Fieldwork and the respondents 20
3.2.3 Data analysis 22
3.3 Limitations and ethics statement 22
4. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement: history and context 24
4.1 The BDS movement’s Call 24
4.2 The Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality 26
4.3 The demands 28
4.3.1 Ending the occupation and dismantling the wall 29 4.3.2 Full equality between Arab-Palestinian and Israeli citizens 30 4.3.3 The right of Palestinian refugees to return 30
4.4 The principle of context-sensitivity 31
4.5 The potential of the BDS movement 32
4.6 Problematization of the BDS movement 34
5. The analysis: BDS activists and their dilemmas in the real world 37
5.1 The Engagement Dilemma 37
5.1.1 External repression: ‘Israel’s dirty war’ 37
5.1.2 Misrepresentation 39
5.1.3 Internal conflicts over strategy 42
5.2 The Risk Dilemma 43
5.2.1 The riskiness of BDS activism 44
5.3 Direct or Indirect Moves? 46
5.4 The Plan versus Opportunity Dilemma 48
5.5 The Basket Dilemma 50
5.5.1 The cultural arena 51
5.5.2 The consumer arena 51
5.5.3 The military arena 52
5.5.4 The academic arena 53
5.5.5 The religious arena 53
5.5.6 The legal and political arena 54
5.5.7 The economic arena 55
5.6 Money’s Curse 55
5.7 The Extension Dilemma 56
5.8 Whose Goals? 58
6. Conclusion 62
List of abbreviations
AAM Anti-Apartheid Movement
BDS Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions BNC Palestinian BDS National Committee DocP Diensten Onderzoek Centrum Palestina
ECCP European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine
ICC International Criminal Court
ICJ International Court of Justice
IDF Israeli Defense Force
NPK Nederlands Palestina Komitee
PACBI Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
PSC Palestine Solidarity Campaign
SJP Students for Justice in Palestine
SRP Studenten voor Rechtvaardigheid in Palestina
1. Introduction
We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians –Nelson Mandela.
The year 1948 is marked by the creation of the state of Israel and the subsequent expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland, also referred to as the Nakba, or catastrophe (Institute for Middle East Understanding 2015). As the ongoing dispossession and occupation of the Palestinian population enters its 70th year, so does the Palestinian resistance as part of this occupation aimed against the direct and frequent violent military control of Israel’s regime. For the Palestinians, this domination results in a permit system, administrative detention, deportation, house demolitions, illegal settlements, torture, and even a wall1 (Shafir 2017: 34) – known as the ‘separation barrier’ by Israelis and the ‘apartheid wall’ by Palestinians – as part of their everyday life. The denial of national freedom and the provoked feelings of injustice among those who live under occupation inevitably led to deviant behavior in many violent and nonviolent forms. The mostly nonviolent First Intifada (1987-93), the series of violent confrontations of the Second Intifada (2000-05) (idem: 11), or the recent nonviolent ‘Great March of Return’ in Gaza hardly covers the sum of it.
Many associate the regime that Israel imposes on the Palestinians with the South African regime of racial segregation under apartheid. Ultimately, the South African people were successful in their fight, but the Palestinian struggle continues up until today:
In practice, Israel, like the apartheid regime, rejects international law as represented by UN decisions (e.g. General Assembly and Human Rights Council) and the International Court of Justice. Examples include the refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, despite the numerous General Assembly resolutions; rejection to remove the wall in the West Bank, despite the ICJ’s advisory opinion; on-going policy of administrative detention of Palestinian political activists; and expanding settlement building in occupied Palestine. (Qafisheh 2012: 5)
Nevertheless, the United Nations (UN), the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other governmental bodies failed to intervene and find a solution for lasting peace in Israel-Palestine. When it became clear that previous forms of Palestinian resistance did not succeed, and the UN General Assembly was unable to pressure the permanent member states of the UN Security Council to act, all that remained for those who opposed Israel’s regime was to create a ‘United Nations from below’ (Bakan & Abu-Laban 2009: 49). It was in July 2005 that 170 Palestinian civil society organizations issued an appeal for a nonviolent boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel and launched the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for “a global citizens’ response of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality” (BDS n.d.a). Motivated by the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) of South Africa, the movement “urges nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law” (ibid.) by meeting the three demands of freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people.
Over the last twelve years the impact of the BDS movement has increased considerably, varying from artists and cultural figures to cancel their shows in Israel to international universities cutting ties with Israeli universities. The growth and success of the BDS campaigns allow, amongst other aspects, for an interesting study of how this movement and its activists endeavor to bring change and to fight the injustices the Palestinians have endured for so long. The aim of this research is to get insights into how different forms of activism can contribute to change and transformation in Palestine and to gain a deeper understanding of the more personal experiences of BDS activists. Inspired by the work of social movement scholars like James Jasper (2006), the research question is: How do activists of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement engage in strategic interaction with other players to persuade the Israeli government to comply with international law? This research question raises the following sub-questions: What is the global BDS movement and what is it striving for? And subsequently, what dilemmas do activists of the BDS movement face due to their engagement in strategic interaction and how do they cope with these dilemmas?
This research argues that the BDS movement proves a relevant case for the more recent theory of strategic choices and dilemmas and aims to gain a deeper understanding of the personal experiences of its activists. By investigating the above, this research adds value to the existing scientific knowledge by examining social movements and transnational activism. Particularly with its focus on the BDS movement, a recent and continuous development, it contributes to the relatively little literature written about this subject thus far. More precisely, this study applies a cultural-emotional approach in terms of strategy as an alternative framework to the study of social movements, characterized by the structure versus agency debate. The importance of emotions and dilemmas is still largely under-represented in the scientific field (Jasper 2010) and little attention has been devoted to the decisions that activists make based on emotions rather than mere rationality. The societal relevance of this research can be found in the fact that the BDS movement, which may well be offering a new framework for international pressure to change the Israeli-Palestinian reality, is a social phenomenon in itself and thus relevant to investigate. But beyond this, the study of decisions can be proven relevant for the BDS activists as well as a reflection on learning by pointing out their choices, dilemmas and trade-offs. If they are aware of this, it might help them to make better decisions than when simply following the custom.
The following sections will first discuss the definition of concepts and the theoretical approaches used to analyze the topic of this research. This will be done in the second chapter, the theoretical framework, followed by a consideration of the research methodology in chapter three. After this, the findings and the results of the study are outlined. The fourth section touches upon information about the
movement itself, the history and the context in which it is situated and subsequently the fifth chapter addresses the analysis of the dilemmas that activists of the global BDS movement face in the real world. Ultimately, the study concludes by summarizing the argument and by proposing some further research suggestions.
2. Theoretical framework and definition of concepts
Before moving on to the methodology and analysis of this research, some of the more important theoretical approaches will be outlined in this section. These theories inform a greater understanding of the topics on social movements and transnational activism – the focal points of this study – along with the broader existing debates in which this research is situated, characterized by the structure versus agency debate. This section first delves into the concept of social movements and transnational advocacy networks, followed by the rational choice theory, the political opportunity structures and the more culturalist approach of framing. Thereafter a more strategic approach to collective action is explored as well as the repertoires of protest.
2.1 Social movements and transnational advocacy networks
The questions of how to define social movements and why they emerge in the first place remain an area of continued debate in the social sciences. Whenever situations of injustice or inequality exist, it may – though not necessarily – give rise to social movements. One such definition of a social movement is “conscious, concerted, and sustained efforts by ordinary people to change some aspect of their society by using extra-institutional means” (Goodwin & Jasper 2015: 3), because movements – other than a single protest or an isolated action – are more conscious and coordinated, by ‘regular’ people rather than politicians or economic elites, with the intention to transform society through political activities not provided by a government. Movements, however, are usually not coherent entities; they encompass individuals and/or formal organizations “who feel as though they share enough goals to call themselves a social movement, a term of collective identity that suggests purpose and power” (Jasper 2013: 3). Through this identity, these entities decide to participate in collective action.
For a social movement to be effective and to mobilize support, it needs to reach other players to interact with; the so-called audiences. More precisely, they will want to strive for having different audiences and different effects upon those. They want their audiences to be active during protests or rallies, but also beyond these performances as to “retreat in fear, change their behavior or attitudes, or stage an alternative or counterperformance” by reshaping their “cognitive orientations to action, pushing them from automatic (routine) toward deliberative (thoughtful) action” (Blee &McDowell 2012: 3). These audiences may be both governmental or nongovernmental actors, and external or internal to the movement. The former includes “potential recruits and allies, the media, bystanders, rivals, opponents, philanthropies and various units of the state” (such as the police or regulators), while the latter includes “grassroots followers or specific factions of members, influential individuals or rivals for office and control” (Jasper 2004: 6).
There seems to be a causal relationship between the ever-increasing globalization dating back to the 19th century and the development of transnational activism; there is a growing involvement of many
non-state actors in world politics, alongside states, who interact with one another and with international organization. The global BDS movement is just one example. This ‘shrinking world’ we live in today, due to technological advances and the readily accessibility of transportation, increases the proliferation of international interactions and opens up a process “that could be defined as a globalization of politics” (Thörn 2006: 4). The structuring of these interactions are networks, which may be called transnational advocacy networks if they consist of activists: “A transnational advocacy network includes those actors working internationally on an issue, who are bound together by shared values, a common discourse, and dense exchanges of information and services” (Keck & Sikkink 1999: 89). These networks possess the ability “to persuade, pressure, and gain leverage over much more powerful organizations and governments” (ibid.).
The current BDS movement draws upon the previously existing AAM. This anti-apartheid struggle is another well-known example of the globalization of politics and is by many seen as one of the most successful campaigns in history. Through this globalization of politics “a new, global political space emerged constituted by three interrelated elements”, according to Thörn (2006: 4-5):
(a) The new media which creates new possibilities for global communication, the creation of (b)
transnational networks of individuals, group and organizations, made possible not only through
the new media, but also by face-to-face interaction facilitated by the new possibilities of travel. Not the least important, these networks must also be seen in the context of de-colonization and post-colonial migration and (c) the rise and consolidation of new ‘global’ organizations and institutions.
In the case of anti-apartheid activism, participants were as much part of their locally based organizations as of the transnational Anti-Apartheid Movement through which they expressed their opposition to the South African apartheid policies (Seidman 2000: 350).
Keck & Sikkink argue that the strategies, tactics and patterns of influence of networks resemble those of social movements, only they label them advocacy networks “because advocates plead the causes of others. Advocacy captures what is unique about these transnational networks – they are organized to promote causes, principles ideas and norms, and often involve individuals advocating policy changes that cannot be easily linked to their ‘interests’” (1999: 91). Actors in such networks involve similar audiences as touched upon above, such as the media and churches, but also local social movements, international and domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Let us now delve into different approaches as to why social movements emerge, why individual actors join them and the ways how they call upon other audiences to act collectively.
2.2
Rational choice theory and resource mobilization
When a situation of injustice or inequality occurs, every individual actor is faced with the choice to participate in the concerted efforts to change that particular aspect of their society or to remain inactive
rational considerations: “Rational individuals will compare the benefits and costs of participation with those of inactivity, and choose the course of action in which their expected utility is maximized” (Muller & Opp 1986: 471). Rational choice implies that individuals calculate what will be in their best interest and choose the alternative that gives them the greatest satisfaction (Scott 2000: 128). Generally, this may result in the so-called ‘free rider’ problem, in which ordinary citizens do not have incentives to support collective action that is often beneficial to the broader community. Therefore, most will remain inactive as one reaps the public benefits of such actions, while at the same time avoiding private costs involved with it (Muller & Opp 1986: 471-72).
Built on past experiences, nonetheless, citizens take part in ‘rebellious’ collective action on a regular basis, sometimes even in large numbers, as also became evident in the South African anti-apartheid struggle. Based on this rational choice perspective, most individuals would actually appear to be acting in a non-rational way since the probabilities of outcome are expected to be risky or uncertain and thus not the most beneficial alternative. Therefore, in order to explain why it may be rational to join a social movement and subsequently to allow for joint action, Olsen (1971), Tullock (1971) and Silver (1974) introduced the notion of selective incentives, which are “private personal rewards that the individual can expect to receive only by participating” (Muller & Opp 1986: 473). These incentives alter the cost-benefit analysis in such a way as to make collective action rewarding. One can think about financial motives, such as direct payments or looting, but also more psychological incentives, such as power, status rewards or the sense of duty to class, a country, the law or humanity as a whole. A third category encompasses the entertainment motive according to which one enjoys the adventure of rebellious action (Muller & Opp 1986: 473). In rational choice theory, all action is seen as rationally motivated, even though it appears to be irrational, and thus denies the possibility of any kind of action other than the one that is thoroughly and carefully considered (Scott 2000: 126-27).
Still, sociologists McCarthy and Zald were not convinced by the personal and material selective incentives as to why people advocate on behalf of interests other than their own. Therefore, they proposed the resource mobilization theory that focuses on the increasing availability of resources to people and groups in the advanced industrial societies. McCarthy and Zald acknowledged the collective action problem, though they emphasize more the means available to actors: “The expanded personal resources, professionalization, and external financial support available to movements in such societies provide a solution” (Tarrow 2011: 24), namely professional movement organizations with strong and efficient leadership. Hence, these resources may include money, time, knowledge or labor, and movements are dependent on (several of) these factors for developing and organizing effectively. Particularly when it involves resources external to movements, resource mobilization theory has much in common with political opportunity theory as outlined below.
2.3 Political opportunity structures and contentious politics
Political opportunity theory, other than the rational choice theory, centers upon the importance of political context and political opportunity structures in the development and success of social movements as well as in activating others to take part in collective action. McAdam, Tilly, and Tarrow, amongst others, laid the foundation of this theory for mobilization. It encompasses opportunity and threats, in which social movements can only be studied in relation to politics, and subsequently vary in their structure, strategy and success among different states (McAdam et al. 1996: 24). By political opportunities “consistent – but not necessarily formal, permanent, or national – sets of clues that encourage people to engage in contentious politics” is meant, while threats imply “those factors – repression, but also the capacity of authorities to present a solid front to insurgents – that discourage contention” (Tarrow 2011: 32).
When incentives are created for actors to take action – due to changes in political opportunities and threats – contentious politics is triggered, which occurs when ordinary people or collective actors “join forces in confrontation with elites, authorities, and opponents around their claims or the claims of those they claim to represent” (Tarrow 2011: 4). On a state level, existing structures can facilitate or constrain collective action “by altering the relative costs of particular tactics. Of critical importance here is the recognition that movement development, tactics, and impact are profoundly affected by a shifting constellation of factors exogenous to the movement itself” (Meyer & Staggenborg 1996: 1633). One can think in this connection of more stable aspects “such as traditions and institutions” or more volatile ones “such as policy, political discourse, and elite alignment” (idem: 1634).
Some scholars argue that both the capacities of the movement – its agency – and the transnational opportunities available to it – the structures in which they operate – are of importance. These political opportunity structures available in the national or international arena can support or condemn activism, making it more or less likely for movements “to gain access to power and to manipulate the political system” (Eisinger 1973: 25). A broader opportunity for movements and transnational networks in general, which emerged over the last two decades, is the increase in international organizations and conferences providing new venues to pursue claims. Or the technological advancements with regard to air travel and electronic and communication technologies, which increases the velocity of information flows and simplifies personal contact. Other times, however, political structures create constraints rather than opportunities, either through repression, intimidation or the hegemonic place of some sort of ideology. In other words, political opportunity structures may be of influence to determine the level of success of social movements.
2.4 The culturalist approach: framing and mobilization
Reflecting the cultural turn and the – more or less – break with the structural paradigm of political opportunity structures, another approach to study a movements’ creation and existence was put forward.
As a way of addressing the free-rider problem and effectively mobilizing individuals to pursue collective action, culture and framing processes became of importance to attach meaning to certain events:
Culture is the shared beliefs and understandings, mediated by and constituted by symbols and language, of a group or society […]; frames are the specific metaphors, symbolic representations, and cognitive cues used to render or cast behavior and events in an evaluative mode and to suggest alternative modes of actions. (Zald 1996: 262)
Within sociology, the relationship between the working of social movements on the one hand and framing processes on the other, is increasingly researched. Alongside political opportunities, framing is regarded as a central element to gain insight into the nature of social movements. Movement actors are active agents, who by means of framing participate in constructing a ‘reality’. The resulting outcomes of this action are generally indicated as ‘collective action frames’: “Frames help to render events or occurrences meaningful and thereby function to organize experiences and guide action” (Benford & Snow 2000: 614). It is in this way that activities and campaigns of social movements get inspired and legitimated by certain sets of beliefs and meanings, or the collective actions frames.
These collective action frames often prove to be necessary to persuade people and to encourage them to take action. Social movements and transnational networks normally do not have the power to sway others’ actions in the traditional sense; that is through wealth, prestige, and physical coercion. Instead, they rely on disruptive power to have an impact on politics. Frances Fox Piven proposes the notion of interdependent power as alternative to why people without the traditional power resources are still able to win, based not on “resources, things, or attributes, but rooted in the social and cooperative relations in which people are enmeshed by virtue of group life” (Piven 2008: 4-5). Society and social life are in principle cooperative life based on relations, hence everyone who takes part in and makes contributions to it has potential power over other people who depend on them. States, for instance, have the power to control armies, police and law authorities, but they are also dependent on the voting public. “Both sides of all these relations have the potential for exercising interdependent power, and at least in principle, the ability to exert power over others by withdrawing or threatening to withdraw from social cooperation” (idem 2008: 6). In the South African context, activists around the world used their disruptive power by engaging in civil disobedience to express their outrage at apartheid. They got peacefully arrested, for instance, or objected to pay taxes if that money was invested in South African businesses (Seidman 2000: 351).
Due to this lack of power in the traditional sense, social movements rely on the power of information, ideas and strategies in rendering events meaningful and to encourage action. Therefore, several ways of doing politics have been identified that movements and networks may use to influence the public opinion, of which information politics and symbolic politics will be discussed here in further depth. Information politics is the “ability to move politically usable information quickly and credibly to where it will have the most impact” (Keck & Sikkink 1999: 95). Essential for a networks’ effectiveness
is information; it binds network members together. This can be done through phone calls, emails, newsletters or pamphlets, for instance, and by providing not only facts, but also testimonies. The media play an important part in disseminating this information and reaching broader audiences. “The ability to call upon symbols, actions or stories that make sense of a situation or claim for an audience that is frequently far away” is referred to as symbolic politics (Keck & Sikkink 1999: 95). By engaging in this form of politics, social movements create awareness and expand the body of civil society actors by using symbolic events to reshape understandings.
Benford & Snow (2000: 615), in turn, identify three core framing tasks to mobilize the audiences’ opinion: diagnostic framing, prognostic framing and motivational framing. Through these tasks actors of social movements are able to reach consensus or agreement (consensus mobilization) and to foster actions (action mobilization). The term diagnostic framing is consistent with the identification of problems and attributions. The former is often focused on ‘injustice frames’, which call attention to the ways victims of a given injustice are identified and amplified by movements – especially those that advocate for political change. The latter, the attributional element, is concerned with identifying culpable agents and the sources of blame, responsibility and/or causality (idem: 615-16). The second core framing task, prognostic framing, involves the proposal for a solution to the problem as well as what will be necessary for the achievement of that solution. Motivational framing, ultimately, is the rationale for action and provides a call to engage in collective action via the motivational vocabularies of severity, urgency, efficacy and propriety (idem: 617).
2.5 Strategic action: getting other people to do what you want
Beyond the rational, structural and cultural approaches described above, James Jasper more recently argued too little attention has been paid to cultural dynamics and criticizes the lack of action, cognition, emotions and morality in most cultural approaches (Jasper 2010). He thus developed the notion of strategic action as a cultural-emotional alternative in an agentic way to show that actors are driven “as much by love and hate, anger and indignation, inspiration and tradition as by costs and benefits” (Jasper 2006: xi). It is in this context that strategic choices have been more important than to wait for a political opportunity to arise in which there is no theory of action by individuals. What is most needed is the insertion of individuals, along with their dilemmas and decisions, into social movements theory: “Structures are only important because they shape our choices” (Jasper 2004: 7).
For a social movement to be successful, its supporters need to engage in strategic action to get the public to do what they want them to. However, this is no easy task taking into consideration that activists in the collective action arena are not always able to construct and impose their version of reality on their intended targets or audiences. To do so after all, one has to think and act strategically: “Strategies are the choices made by individuals and organizations in their interactions with other players, especially opponents” (Jasper 1997: 44). Most of the time, however, human beings do not think strategically and
successfully in doing so, it often settles into routines. The most important aspect of strategic action is strategic interaction, in which:
You face other players who regard you strategically, just as you do them, and engage in a series of actions in response to others, anticipating their reactions in turn. In this case, they react to your efforts, whether with resistance, cooperation, prevarication, or delay. (Jasper 2006: 6)
Thus, action converts into interaction when both sides engage with mutual awareness. This can be either in the form of cooperative or conflictual interactions. It is in this sense that, according to Jasper, political opportunities disregard the more dynamic approach to social movements and that strategy, in turn, covers almost everything that they do. Hence the main constraints on what activists can accomplish come from other players with different goals and interests rather than from political and social structures. A street march, such as the Palestinian Great March of Return, already embodies a strategic choice. In other words, the term strategy incorporates different types of decisions made in the interest of a social movement. One can think about mobilizing strategy, organizational strategy and strategic framing (Smithey 2009: 660).
When strategic interaction is studied up close, it consists of social-psychological and even psychological fragments: “Moods, reflex emotions, affective commitments, decision-making heuristics, identity formation, memories, feelings of efficacy and control, leader dynamics, demonizations, escalations, and so on” (Jasper 2010: 967). The minds of individuals are shaped by and through social interactions, more particularly by carrying along past experiences as memories, feelings and beliefs. On the other hand, interactions “are not fully determined by existing relations, as the point of many interactions is to challenge or reinforce prior relations” (idem: 973). Overall, emotions often allow for players to engage in strategic interaction; they are not only the prior incentives to engagement but also part of the ensuing action-interaction flow.
The places where these interactions and the ensuing strategic decisions occur are referred to as arenas, which are sets of rules, expectations, material support and rewards that support for certain interactions to proceed. To each arena, activists develop ‘repertoires of action’ that seem convenient for that arena (Jasper 2013: 5). According to Jasper, little consideration has been given to how protestors decide what to do, “leaving the impression that they simply follow the scripts and routines they have learned in or from other movements” (idem: 3). An inherent feature of strategic choices is that they more often than not take the form of dilemmas: “Each option comes with a long list of potential benefits and risks, some known and some not, as well as various costs” (Jasper 2013: 3). Dozens of such strategic dilemmas exist, such as the Plan versus Opportunity Dilemma, the Dilemma of Direct or Indirect Moves to challenge your opponentsw, the Engagement Dilemma whereby moving into active participation consequently carries a number of risks and the Extension Dilemma of whether to aim for a large number of members with more resources or a smaller but more coordinated one. Mostly, however, these basic
questions “are ignored in favor of familiar routines. But even when not faced as explicit dilemmas they are still there as underlying trade-offs” (Jasper 2013: 3).
A strategy may not particularly be aimed at directly getting others to do something but rather at getting them to notice, believe or feel something. Subsequently, strategic players have three basic means at hand to get others to do what they want them to: physical coercion or threat, persuasion, and/or payments. “Money, reputation, technologies, even emotions of confidence are all helpful” (Jasper 2015: 11). Subsequently, two types of strategy can be identified: one is the physical resources based on coercion and payments and the other involves persuasion as a form of intelligence (Jasper 2006: 88). Social movements generally depend heavily on the strategy of persuasion to accomplish their objectives. The following section shortly touches upon different means available to social movements to achieve those goals.
2.6
The repertoires of protest
Once the reason ‘why’ individual actors participate in collective action has been discussed, the question of ‘how’ remains unanswered. When social movements want to oppose or fight injustices or inequalities, then what kinds of tactics are available to them to participate in collective action and bring about change? Social movements often resist by means of nonviolent rather than violent strategies and tactics, and by pressuring both governmental bodies – e.g. states, the UN or the ICC – and nongovernmental bodies – e.g. financial institutions or corporations. Leverage politics, for example, is aimed at calling upon powerful actors “to affect a situation where weaker members of a network are unlikely to have influence” (Keck & Sekkink 1999: 95). The identification of leverage is an important strategic action for social movements. Here two types of leverage will be discussed: material and moral leverage. Material leverage mostly refers to money or goods, but possibly also other benefits such as prestigious offices and votes in international organizations. In this way, network actors try to connect collaboration to something that is of value, such as money, prestige or trade. Moral leverage is what is sometimes called the ‘mobilization of shame’: with states that place a high value on international prestige, holding their behavior up to international scrutiny can be an effective tactic (idem: 97).
The repertoires of protest, a concept borrowed of Charles Tilly, are intended to interrupt institutions and social systems and “persuade, coerce, and encourage negotiation” (Smithey 2009: 666). The usage of each method projects different messages and invites different responses from opponents, third parties and bystanding publics. These tactics encompass demonstrations, petitions, protest, marches, strikes, boycotts, occupations, sit-ins, religious services and commemorations for instance. Protestors in different countries and societies face different political structures within which they operate, thus resulting in choosing different strategies. Tactics have a twofold function of both challenging opponents – the external function – and of generating collective identity and solidarity – the internal function (Goodwin & Jasper 2015: 215-16). Many transnational advocacy networks or social movements are
actors to pressure (sufficiently enough) their state from within. In this case, local NGOs can seek international allies to start pressuring their (often repressive) state from the outside. This is the “boomerang pattern of influence” and a defining characteristic of a transnational advocacy network (Risse & Sikkink 1999: 18). This is exactly what the global BDS movement is aiming for, which will be discussed in full depth in the analysis right after the next section about the methodology of this study.
3. Research methodology
This section discusses the methodology that was used to explore the question as to how activists of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement engage in strategic interaction with other players to persuade Israel to comply with international law. As a way of operationalizing strategic interaction, the strategic dilemmas that BDS players face have been used. This rationale derives from the fact that strategic interaction almost always involves dilemmas and these, in turn, cover almost everything of the activists’ strategic interactions. First the research design is touched upon, in which the overall goal is described, followed by the research methods. Particularly through which methods the data was collected as well as how this data was subsequently analyzed. Lastly, some limitations and ethical considerations of this research are discussed.
3.1 Research design
The overall goal of this study is to get a deeper and more comprehensive knowledge on the global BDS campaign for freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians. The aim is to unravel how players of this movement engage in strategic interaction to persuade Israel to obey international law, hence exploring the more personal stories of activists supporting the BDS movement. More broadly, this research dives into the existing studies of social movements and transnational activism to get a holistic understanding of the scientific field. It does not strive for generalizations; its character is rather ideographic and aims for exploring and describing the subject written about and to reveal the uniqueness of a particular case. To answer the research question, a research design was developed providing “a framework for the collection and analysis of data” (Bryman 2016: 40).
This research makes use of a qualitative approach to get insights into different interpretations and opinions people have and the meanings they prescribe to certain happenings or events. The way in which the research question was formulated favors more of an exploratory study and leads to the comprehensive analysis of a single case study, namely the global BDS movement. As a research strategy, “the case study is used in many situations to contribute to our knowledge of individual, group, organizational, social, political, and related phenomena” (Yin 2003: 1). It is also useful for testing if a certain theory is applicable to events in the real world. The justification for the use of a case study arises “of the desire to understand complex social phenomena. In brief, the case study method allows investigators to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events” (Yin 2003: 1-2). Therefore, the results of this research largely reflect people’s real life and thus has high ecological validity (Bryman 2016: 42).
3.2
Research methods
The section below outlines the research methods that were used to complete this study, differentiating between the data collection, the fieldwork period and some information about the respondents and the subsequent data analysis.
3.2.1 Data collection
The body of this research exists of semi-structured interviews both over Skype and in person, coupled with a literature study of different theoretical and methodological approaches. The method of online interviewing was necessary for this research because of the different origins of the activists, notably the Netherlands, South Africa and Israel. A clear benefit, compared to face-to-face interviewing, is the low cost, while simultaneously providing for contact with a dispersed population throughout the world. Besides, interviewing through Skype may ensure the interviewers’ safety. Some even argue that this way of interviewing is more effective “since interviewees may be less anxious about answering when the interviewer is not psychically present” (Bryman 2016: 484). On the other hand, it may negatively influence the impact the interviewer has on the success of the interview because the interviewer and the participant are remote from one another.
The case study design favors the method of semi-structured interviews since it is “conductive to the generation of an intensive, detailed examination of a case” (Bryman 2016: 61). This type of interview offers flexibility and encourages respondents to deviate from the central themes to give insights into what they perceive as important and relevant. In other words, it allows interviewees to speak freely about their observations, experiences, thoughts and emotions to get a comprehensive story, while it also enables to steer the interviews into the direction of several topics that are worth to discuss for the purpose of the research. Besides, it reinforces the comparability among the interviews (Fylan 2005: 72).
As a way of gathering respondents, the convenience sampling technique was used, followed by the sequential snowball sampling. Various organizations supportive of BDS have been approached in different countries to ask if they would be willing to take part in this research. This is a convenient way to reach a population that is “easily accessible and willing to participate in a study” (Teddlie & Yu 2007: 78). In some cases, respondents were asked to mention other persons, or they did on their own so that the sample could be extended. These methods of sampling offered an “efficient and economical way of finding cases, that may otherwise be difficult or impossible to locate or contact” (Faugier & Sargeant 1997: 792). This was especially useful in this research, given the fact that the topic touched upon remains a sensitive and deviant issue.
3.2.2 Fieldwork and the respondents
Due to the still contentious character of the topic, some difficulties with finding respondents were experienced at first, though eventually ten supporters of the BDS movement agreed to participate willingly. These ten interviews, of which three were in person and seven over Skype, were conducted
during a fieldwork period of five weeks. During the interviews, questions were asked on their personal motivations to become involved in the BDS campaign, on the activities they were engaged in, on strategies and tactics they used and on challenges and dilemmas that they faced as being an BDS activist, amongst others. The interviews in person all took place in the Netherlands with members from the Nederlands Palestina Komitee (NPK), Diensten Onderzoek Centrum Palestina (DocP), and Studenten voor Rechtvaardigheid in Palestina (SRP). Besides, an ex-member of the NPK was interviewed, but over Skype due to the fact that the respondent was not residing in the Netherlands at the moment of the interview.
Other interviews were held over Skype with an Israeli BDS supporter from the group Boycott from Within – which supports the Palestinian Call for a BDS campaign from inside Israel – and five activists from South Africa: one from Kairos Southern Africa and four from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in Cape Town. Moreover, three of the respondents played in one way or another a role in the AAM that fought to bring an end to the regime of apartheid in South Africa – after which the BDS campaign is modelled – and four of the respondents were Jewish themselves, although some non-practicing. This information is summarized below in table 1. Except for two, all the respondents were of an older age group, which consisted of three women and seven men. The interviews in person took place at a location to their satisfaction and the interviews over Skype in a quiet setting free from distractions on my end. The interviews lasted approximately one hour with a few exceptions of longer or shorter durations.
Table 1: The respondents
Name Organization Interview Date Jewish Involvement
AAM, SA Martin Nederlands Palestina Komitee,
the Netherlands
In person 05-04-2018 No No Hosam Boycott from Within, Israel Over Skype 09-04-2018 Yes No William Palestine Solidarity Campaign,
South Africa Over Skype 10-04-2018 Yes No
Francis Palestine Solidarity Campaign, South Africa
Over Skype 11-04-2018 Yes Yes Leora Nederlands Palestina Komitee,
the Netherlands
Over Skype 16-04-2018 No No Emma Kairos Southern Africa, South
Africa
Over Skype 18-04-2018 No No John Palestine Solidarity Campaign,
South Africa
Over Skype 19-04-2018 No Yes Hilma Diensten en Onderzoek Centrum
Palestina, the Netherlands
In person 23-04-2018 No No Daniel Studenten voor Rechtvaardigheid
in Palestina, the Netherlands In person 25-04-2018 No No Adam Palestine Solidarity Campaign,
South Africa
3.2.3 Data analysis
To analyze the data collected, the interviews were first converted into text by transcribing them. After this process, the transcripts were offered to the respondents allowing them to revise and possibly adjust their statements and comments if desired. Subsequently, a content analysis has been carried out in which the transcripts were studied and coded to search for underlying themes, followed by the identification of regular patterns. These patterns entail “repeatedly occurring descriptions, explanations, and arguments, in different participants’ talk” (Talja 1999: 467).
More specifically, the approach of ethnographic content analysis (also referred to as the qualitative content analysis) has been used, as opposed to the more conventional quantitative content analysis. The latter is employed “by collecting quantitative data about predefined and usually precoded categories or variables” (Altheide & Schneider 2013: 25), thereby verifying hypothesis rather than identifying new patterns. The ethnographic content analysis, on the other hand, emphasizes “the reflexive and highly interactive nature of the investigator, concepts, data collection, and analysis” (idem: 26) and is oriented toward the emergence of categories and variables throughout the study, including the “constant discovery and constant comparison of relevant situations, settings, styles, images, meaning, and nuances” (ibid.). The outcome of such approach results in a textual analysis rather than a statistical one.
The patterns that were discovered eventually form the basis of the analysis, composed of several dilemmas that strategic players of the BDS movement face in the real-world. These dilemmas were selected based on the information that the interviewees provided and through their stories the relationship with the theoretical concepts was reconstructed. In other words, this research started with observations, after which inductive reasoning was used to derive a theory from these observations in order to make sense of it. Every statement the respondents made was double checked via other sources to the extent possible – such as scholarly publications, websites and newspaper articles – to cross-check data from multiple sources and to enhance triangulation to make the results more powerful (O’Donoghue & Punch 2003: 78).
3.3 Limitations and ethics statement
Although activists are not a homogeneous entity, some possible bias needs to be taken into account because of the nature of similarity within social networks. Accordingly, the main limitation of this research is the low degree of external validity, which concerns “the question of whether the results of a study can be generalized beyond the specific context” (Bryman 2016: 42). Due to the small and select number of BDS activists interviewed to tell their personal stories based on nonrandom sampling, the findings may not be suitable for generalizations to the population at large to draw definitive conclusions. Due to the inductive and exploratory nature of this research, however, the aim is to provide insights rather than definitive conclusions. Furthermore, within the case study design “the crucial question is not whether the findings can be generalized to a wider universe but how well the researcher generates theory out of the findings” (idem: 64). This is what Yin calls the ‘analytic generalization’ on which case studies
rely (Yin 2003: 37). Another possible limitation concerns the way the interviews were conducted: mostly over Skype and not face-to-face. In general, the interviews conducted over video call did not interfere with the quality of the interviews, with very few exceptions of poor reception every now and then, after which the interview was resumed.
With regard to ethical implications, the interests and concerns of those whose lives this research may have affected were respected at all times. Nothing was done that could possibly harm the participants and they were all openly and honestly informed on this research and its purposes by means of an informed consent form. The conversations were only recorded after permission was granted and the content, along with the respondents’ personal details, have been treated with confidentiality. Anonymity was offered to protect the respondents for any possible negative consequences of participating. Because of the wishes of one of the respondents to remain unknown, pseudonyms have been used throughout the research for all respondents for the sake of consistency – also for those who agreed that their names could be used. It must be taken into account that this thesis touches upon a sensitive topic and the circumstances in which some BDS activists operate may be repressive and restricting, at best. I tried to the best of my ability to interpret the findings accurately and to put into words a correct and fair representation of the BDS campaign and the work of all of those that are involved. Having considered the theoretical framework and the research methodology, the following chapters delve into the subject of the BDS movement and the results of the study.
4. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement:
history and context
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. –Mahatma Gandhi
Before touching upon the dilemmas BDS activists face in their strategic choices in the analysis, this chapter outlines some of the most important features and characteristics of the global BDS movement in order to understand the history and context in which the campaign operates. This is examined by means of various sources, such as literature, reports, websites and the interviews. It starts off with the official and foundational statement of the movement’s Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel issued by representatives of the Palestinian civil society in 2005. This is followed by some background information and the demands of the movement – including some examples of the current situation in Palestine and occasionally in comparison to South Africa,s since it is modelled after their experience. Subsequently, some characteristics and principles of the movement are discussed, as well as its potential and problematization.
4.1 The BDS movement’s Call, July 9, 2005
Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human
Rights
9 July 2005
One year after the historic Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found Israel's Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal, Israel continues its construction of the colonial Wall with total disregard to the Court's decision. Thirty-eight years into Israel's occupation of the Palestinian West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights, Israel continues to expand Jewish colonies. It has unilaterally annexed occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and is now de facto annexing large parts of the West Bank by means of the Wall. Israel is also preparing – in the shadow of its planned redeployment from the Gaza Strip – to build and expand colonies in the West Bank. Fifty-seven years after the state of Israel was built mainly on land ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian owners, a majority of Palestinians are refugees, most of whom are stateless. Moreover, Israel's entrenched system of racial discrimination against its own Arab-Palestinian citizens remains intact.
Given 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
Given 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, and
In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions;
Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,
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.
Endorsed by:
The Palestinian political parties, unions, associations, coalitions and organizations representing the three integral parts of the people of Palestine: Palestinian refugees, Palestinians under occupation and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
4.2 The Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality
For over seventy years Israel for the most part denied Palestinians their basic human rights, seizing more of their land2 and refusing to comply with international law with impunity, while simultaneously pressing “the assertion of being the only democracy in the Middle East” (Shafir 2017: 23). This has been possible because of broad international support for Israel, mainly coming from the United States (U.S.). It was calculated that between 1982 and 2006 the U.S. “vetoed 33 United Nations Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel, a number greater than the combined total of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members” (Mearsheimer & Walt 2006: 31). Just recently, the U.S. vetoed another UN Resolution (S/2018/516) concerning the 2018 Gaza border protests in the context of the Great March of Return, in which between March 30 and June 7 already 131 unarmed Palestinians were killed and over 13.900 were injured (UNOCHA 2018).
Nevertheless, support for Israel goes beyond the U.S. Governments across the world have failed to hold Israel responsible, whereas corporations and institutions may indirectly be complicit in maintaining Israel’s regime of occupation. This situation, accompanied by a more general shift in public opinion at the grassroots level in the Western world in reaction to the bloody suppression of the second Palestinian intifada (2000-05), gave rise to a new, nonviolent movement in support of the Palestinians in the form of BDS. Especially noteworthy is the BDS Call’s broad approval it has enjoyed, since it was issued by the overwhelming majority of the three segments of the Palestinian population: the indigenous Palestinian citizens of Israel, those under the 1967 occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians in exile – who encompass the majority of the Palestinian population.
Already in 2002 British academics were rejecting complicity in the violations of international law by Israel by launching academic pressure campaigns. This was based on the reasoning that Israeli universities deliver research, arguments, technology and leaders for continuing the occupation (Beckett & MacAskill 2002). Days before an advisory opinion issued by the ICJ on July 9, 2004 – denouncing
2
This map shows the disappearance of Palestinian land in favor of Israeli land since 1946 (two years before the creation of Israel, then still under the British mandate) until 2012. Source: Palestine Awareness Coalition.
Israel’s wall and the Israeli settlements on Palestinian land as illegal – the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) called for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. According to this campaign, “Israeli academic institutions (mostly state controlled) and the vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and academics have either contributed directly to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying” the oppression, “or have been complicit in them through their silence” (PACBI n.d.). It is argued that Israel uses culture to whitewash – or cover up – its regime and violations of international law, and hence the justification of a boycott of Israeli institutions. This call was amplified a year later, when more than 170 Palestinian civil society organizations and unions issued the Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel for Palestinian freedom, justice and self-determination as outlined above.
Boycotts include the individual choice to abstain from purchasing Israeli goods and to withdraw support for Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions, as well as Israeli and international companies associated with or profiting from Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. Divestment aims for withdrawal of investments from both Israeli and international companies that are complicit in the infringement of Palestinian rights by banks, pension funds, universities, churches and local councils. The third element, the sanctions campaigns, consists of pressuring governments to hold Israel accountable for its actions in relation to the Palestinian people. This is done by implementing state laws that would ban interactions, most commonly free-trade agreements, military trade and the eviction of Israel from international associations and organizations like FIFA and the UN (Culcasi 2016: 259).
Within the BDS movement there are several different campaign areas, such as the academic, cultural, economic, consumer and sports boycott, as well as trade union and student solidarity (these areas will be discussed in more depth in the analysis). It is important to note, however, that BDS is not a blanket boycott. It’s not a boycott of individuals, aimed at targeting everyone and everything Israeli; it calls for a boycott of complicit Israeli academic, cultural, economic and political institutions because they are seen as complicit in sustaining the oppression of the Palestinian people. As a way to oppose statements of anti-boycott groups that art, the academy, and more generally any profession “should be exempted from the boycott for being ‘above politics’ despite evidence of being implicated in a very real political regime of oppression” (Barghouti 2011: 23), an Israeli-British architect founded Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP). In this way, he stresses that architecture is an exemplar of complicity in illegal construction in the West Bank:
Architecture and planning are instruments of the occupation and constitute part of a continuing war against a whole people […]. Since this involves dispossession, discrimination and acquisition of land and homes by force, against the Geneva conventions, it can be classified as participation in war crimes. […] What can one say about the Israeli architects who follow the state’s policies and aims yet deny that their role is political? Despite all the evidence of illegality under international law and breaches of human rights in the land grabs, house demolitions and evictions, Israeli architects and planners continue their activities. They cannot claim that they do not know: there
One last important characteristic of the global BDS movement is that it is categorically against all types of discrimination and racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, as stressed by co-founder of the BDS movement Omar Barghouti:
Individuals who believe that some are more human or deserve more rights than others based on differences in ethnic, religious, gender, sexual, or any other human identity attributes cannot belong to this consistently antiracist struggle for universal rights. […] BDS […] is effective, flexible, and inclusive enough to welcome all those committed to the irreducible entitlement of all humans to equal rights. (Barghouti 2011: 33)
4.3
The demands
Modelled after the South African experience of the AAM and their engagement in strategic action, the Palestinian BDS movement insists on pressuring Israel until “it meets its obligations under international law” (BDS n.d.a) – that is until Israel meets the following three demands:
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; 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes
and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194 (ibid.).
Although the official BDS Call does not directly refer to Israel as an apartheid state, many activists do. The aim of this study is not the prove whether this is true or not. Yet apartheid is a crime in accordance with international law and thus deserving of some attention. In addition, it is fundamental as to how a country is treated by the international community. Despite the fact that it was brought to world attention by the racist regime there, apartheid is not solely a trademark for South Africa and it has been recognized by the UN as a crime against humanity for decades3. The sometimes provided, though misinformed, argument that – unlike in South Africa where the whites formed a minority – Jewish-Israelis are in the majority, disregards the fact that the universal definition of apartheid does not involve majorities or minorities. Rather, it is defined by the UN Apartheid Convention as:
Inhumane acts […] committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systemic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime. (UNESCWA 2017: 17)
Already in 1975, resolution 3379 was adopted by the UN General Assembly, which determined that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. Moreover, the resolution “most severely condemned Zionism as a threat to world peace and security and called upon all countries to oppose this
racist and imperialist ideology” (A/RES/3379). Remarkably, the countries who voted against this resolution were primarily colonial powers – the Western world – and their allies. Oddly enough, this resolution was revoked in 1991 for two main reasons: the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose support had helped pass the resolution, and the demand by the U.S. and Israel to repeal it or otherwise they would refuse to participate in a revival of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the form of the Madrid Peace Conference (Norton 2015). In the section below the movement’s demands are discussed in further depth, starting with the end of the occupation.
4.3.1 Ending the occupation and dismantling the wall
This first demand stems from the fact that since the 1967 Six-Day War the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and Gaza are occupied by Israel, as also recognized under international law (Rubin 2009). Besides, Israeli Jewish settlers4 enjoy full political rights, economic benefits, subsidized and heavily protected housing, and even special roads for Israelis only5, which the Palestinians do not enjoy. Even in South Africa there never were whites-only roads under apartheid and there never was a prolonged siege as the one in Gaza (Kasrils & Brittain 2005) – sometimes referred to as the world’s largest open-air prison. Gaza is controlled “through a blockade that prohibits, obstructs, and limits who and what can enter and leave the Strip” (Winter 2016: 308). This make that the UN and other international organizations have confirmed that Gaza may be uninhabitable by 2020 (UN News 2015), perhaps earlier. As John – member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) who launched the banking sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa – argues: “As bad as it was here, it’s worse there.”6
The second demand concerns dismantling the separation barrier. There is an almost complete consensus of Israeli Jews supporting the wall, although Israel’s former Environment Minister protested against a rather specific aspect of it:
The separation fence severs the continuity of open areas and is harmful to the landscape, the flora and fauna, the ecological corridors and the drainage of the creeks. The protective system will irreversibly affect the land resource and create enclaves of communities [of animals] that are cut off from their surroundings. […] I certainly don’t want to stop or delay the building of the fence, because it is essential and will save lives… On the other hand, I am disturbed by the environmental damage involved. (Mualem 2003)
Eventually, tiny passages through the wall were created for small animals. The Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, however, was still not satisfied:
The animals don't know that there is now a border. They are used to a certain living space, and what we are concerned about is that their genetic diversity will be affected because different
4 Settlers are Israeli citizens who live in settlements on Occupied Palestinian Territory which are declared illegal under international law. As of November 2017, there were almost 600.000 settlers (B’Tselem 2017).
