Boycott Tactic Used In International Solidarity Campaign

In the Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program's introductory course in "Organizing Social Movements and Campaigns," we spend time looking at a variety of campaign tactics, including organized boycotts and "buycotts." This tactic has been used effectively by such venerable nonviolent activists like Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Cesar Chavez, as well by as more contemporary groups like Rainforest Action Network, Corporate Accountability International (formerly known as INFACT), and the international divestment movement that helped bring the Apartheid regime to its knees in South Africa.

While very controversial in some circles, this campaign tactic is now also being used as part of an organized international citizens campaign to end Israel's ongoing, illegal occupation and exploitation of the Palestine people in Gaza and the West Bank. The video news report below gives some background on the current corporate campaign against the AHAVA company, which receives Israeli tax and regulation incentives to locate their operations in the West Bank. This is just one campaign by the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign for Palestine(BDS Movement). Take a look at this report. It is worth debating whether such tactics might help move the Palestinian/Israeli conflict towards a genuinely just and lasting peace.