"BDS Has A History"

Prof. William A. Jacobson

December 4, 2016

Thesis:
Century-old history of boycotts shows that
BDS is the latest form of economic war
against the Jews in Israel
Re-packaged for tactical reasons to appeal
to concerns for social justice rather
than Jew-hatred or destruction of Israel

Core boycott re-packaged

narrative
BDS is a 2005 call
from Palestinian Civil Society

(NY Times, December 15,

2013)

History of boycotts against Jews

in British Mandate for Palestine

The Arab League Boycott

Arab League formed 1944
Boycott started 1945
There was no Israel in 1945, it was boycott
of Jews

October 1947

How Arab League Boycott worked

Primary boycott prohibits the importation of goods and services from

Israel into the territory of Arab League members.
Secondary boycott prohibits individuals, companies (both private and
public sector), from engaging in business with U.S. firms and those
from other countries that do business with Israel, blacklist
maintained by the Damascus-based Central Boycott Office (CBO)
Tertiary boycott prohibits business dealings with U.S. and other firms
that do business with blacklisted companies.

1949-1967
No boycott of Jordan for occupation of West
Bank or Egypt for occupation of Gaza

Arab League boycott largely ineffective

until 1973 Arab Oil Embargo

U.S. passes anti-boycott legislation

Federal
State

By mid-1990s, Arab League boycott again

largely ineffective
combination of U.S. legislation (late 1970s),
Peace Treaties with Egypt (1979)and Jordan
(1994), and Oslo Accords (1993)
Reality of Israel technological and economic
advances

By 2001, Arab League considers reactivating

boycott

Arab and Muslim countries also begin to

structure non-governmental boycott which
movement evades
existing U.S. anti-boycott legislation

Do so through captive NGOs and UN

apparatus

Goal of economic warfare never went away,

just shifted
Replaced with captive NGO-driven UNsanctioned Apartheid narrative laid out at preDurban and Durban conferences in 2001

2001 Tehran Conference

February 19 to 21, 2001
Israel, along with Jewish NGOs, were excluded

Mary Robinson, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human

Rights wrote in The Daily Beast while promoting her new book
(emphasis added):
It had been clear to me early on that holding one of the four
regional conferences, the Asian prepcom, in Tehran, would be
problematic. Iran, chosen by the countries of the region, was a
poor choice to host a conference addressing issues of racism,
xenophobia, and anti- Semitism because of its known hostility
towards Israel. Tactically, it would have been better to move the
preparatory meeting elsewhere in the region, but no other
governments offered, probably because many had their own
minority, caste, or racism issues.

In its prepcom session, the Tehran meeting,

held in February 2001, harshly criticized
Israel for its policies in the Palestinian
territories and its treatment of Palestinians
and made an analogy between those policies
and Apartheid. The Zionist movement . . . is
based on race superiority, the draft declaration
subsequently alleged, along with the charge that
Israel had carried out ethnic cleansing of the
Arab population of historic Palestine. All such
sentences were opposed by some delegates
present and, as is always the UN procedure,
were put in square brackets in the text,
indicating they had not been agreed upon.

At the time, I felt certain that this inflammatory language

would be removed from further draft texts well before
Durban. Unfortunately, as the preparatory processes went
on, the states that had inserted the bracketed language in
Tehran refused to withdraw it.

Looking back, I realize I put too much store

in the fact that any controversial clauses put
in square brackets would either be removed
during the preparatory process, or inevitably
would be thoroughly debated during the
tough negotiations on a final text. I
underestimated the hurt and anxiety words
in a document would cause, regardless of
whether they were in brackets or not, and
that the political fallout would start before
the Durban conference itself.

Durban NGO Conference

September 2001

Congressman Tom Lantos

The Durban Debacle, An Insiders View of the UN World
Conference Against Racism
Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Winter/Spring 2002

Another ring in the Durban circus was the NGO forum, taking
place just outside the conference center. Although the NGO
proceedings were intended to provide a platform for the wide
range of civil society groups interested in the conferences
conciliatory mission, the forum quickly became stacked with
Palestinian and fundamentalist Arab groups. Each day, these
groups organized anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic rallies
around the meetings, attracting thousands. One flyer which
was widely distributed showed a photograph of Hitler and
the question What if I had won? The answer: There
would be NO Israel

At a press conference held by Jewish NGOs to discuss

their concerns with the direction the conference was
taking, an accredited NGO, the Arab Lawyers Union,
distributed a booklet filled with anti-Semitic
caricatures frighteningly like those seen in the Nazi hate
literature printed in the 1930s. Jewish leaders and I who
were in Durban were shocked at this blatant display of
anti-Semitism. For me, having experienced the horrors
of the Holocaust first hand, this was the most
sickening and unabashed display of hate for Jews I
had seen since the Nazi period.

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the official NGO

document that was later adopted by a majority of the
3,000 NGOs in the forum branded Israel a racist
apartheid state guilty of genocide and called for an
end to its racist crimes against Palestinians.

I join with Congressman Lantos and other critics

who rightly condemn the anti-Semitism that
some groups brought to events and activities
surrounding the Non-Governmental Forum (NGO
Forum). In some places, there was an
atmosphere of intimidation and hate against
Jewish people. There were cartoons and posters
that were hurtful and inappropriate. Additionally,
the final NGO document contained language
relating to Israel that was inflammatory. In fact,
portions of the document proposed by the Jewish
caucus were defeated in a process that was
intimidating and undemocratic.
(Gay McDougall, Fletcher Forum, Summer/Fall

Durban NGO Conference Boycott Call

423. Call for the launch of an international anti Israeli
Apartheid movement as implemented against South African
Apartheid through a global solidarity campaign network of
international civil society, UN bodies and agencies, business
communities and to end the conspiracy of silence among states,
particularly the European Union and the United States.

424. Call upon the international community to impose a policy of complete

and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state as in the case of South Africa
which means the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and
embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid,
military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel. Call upon the
Government of South Africa to take the lead in this policy of isolation, bearing in
mind its own historical success in countering the undermining policy of
"constructive engagement" with its own past Apartheid regime.

The Durban Strategy is the

strategy of the BDS movement
The result of an openly
anti-Semitic agenda conceived
in Tehran and born in Durban,
framed in the language of
anti-racism and human rights

BDS in the USA, 2001-2010

byNouraErakat,publishedinMER255(2010)
Thecallgavevoicetoagrowingmovementthatbegan,
appropriately,inDurban,SouthAfricaatthe2001World
ConferenceAgainstRacism,wherenon-governmental
organizationsandactivistsequatedIsraelsracially
discriminatorypoliciesthroughoutIsraelproperandthe
OccupiedTerritorieswithapartheidandadvocatedBDSas
thestrategyofchoiceforfightingback.InDurbanand
subsequently,theactivistshavedrawnuponthegeneral
definitionofapartheidDirectlyprecedingthe2005call,
agroupofPalestinianintellectualsandacademicsissueda
callfortheacademicandculturalboycottofIsraelin
2004.

Boycott activity using the Durban Strategy

started almost immediately

2002-2004 Organizing efforts of Palestinian

Civil Society around Durban Strategy
But Durban Strategy boycott already active
without any Call from Palestinian Civil
Society

July 2004 organizing initial boycott call

BDS Final Boycott Call

July 2005

BDS JULY 2005 FINAL DECLARATION OF BOYCOTT

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 peoples
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.

Core tactics of BDS similar to Arab League

Boycott
Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Boycotts

Primary boycott Israeli goods, services,

academia, culture
Secondary boycott those who do business
with Israel, e.g., retailers who sell Israeli
products
Tertiary boycott those who do business
with blacklisted persons/entities e.g. Sabra
Humus, anti-normalization, Spanish music
festival that invited Matisyahu

Academic Boycott Guidelines

Inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa as well as the
long tradition of civil resistance against settler-colonialism in Palestine,
the PACBI Call urges academics and cultural workers to
comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and
cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israels
occupation, colonization and system of apartheid, by applying the
following:
1. Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural
cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions;

2. Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli

institutions at the national and international levels,
including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies
to these institutions;
3. Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by
international academic institutions;
4. Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by
pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic,
professional and cultural associations and organizations;
5. Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions
directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli
counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such
support.

Current Status of BDS

Thesis:
Century-old history of boycotts shows that
BDS is the latest form of economic war
against the Jews in Israel
Re-packaged for tactical reasons to appeal
to concerns for social justice rather
than Jew-hatred or destruction of Israel