Boycott Israel Quotes

BDS is perhaps the most ambitious, empowering, and promising Palestinian-led global movement for justice and rights. BDS has the capacity to challenge Israel's colonial rule and apartheid in a morally consistent, effective, and, crucially, intelligent manner.

Peace without justice is equivalent to institutionalizing injustice.

Leftist university professors in Western Europe and the United States have also been agitated about one other country’s wars—Israel’s. Hence the numerous attempts by Leftist professors at Western universities to boycott Israeli professors and universities. But, of course, Chinese professors and universities are not only exempt from boycotts; they are enthusiastically sought after despite the lack of elementary freedoms in China, the Chinese government’s incarceration of dissidents in psychiatric wards, the decimation of much of Tibetan culture, and the increasing Chinese occupation of that ancient country.

In response to this fatal alliance of savage capitalism in the West with Israeli racism, exclusion and colonial subjugation, the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel presents not only a progressive, anti racist [3], sophisticated, sustainable, moral and effective form of civil non-violent resistance, but also a real chance of becoming the political catalyst and moral anchor for a strengthened, reinvigorated international social movement capable of reaffirming the rights of all humans to freedom, equality and dignity and the right of nations to self determination.

The United States is just "too big to hold to account," whether by judicial inquiry, boycott and sanctions, or other means.

despite finishing first in my class at Yale Law School, I was rejected by all 32 of the law firms to which I applied.

Since the terms "aggression" and "terrorism" are inadequate, some new term is needed for the sadistic and cowardly torture of people caged with no possibility of escape, while they are being pounded to dust by the most sophisticated products of U.S. military technology. That technology is used in violation of international and even U.S. law, but for self-declared outlaw states that is just another minor technicality.... ...The United States is just "too big to hold to account," whether by judicial inquiry, boycott and sanctions, or other means.

We can debate the extent to which Israel relies on U.S. support, but there can be little doubt that its crushing of Palestinians and other violent crimes are possible only because the United States provides it with unprecedented economic, military, diplomatic, and ideological support. So if there are to be boycotts, why not of the United States, whose support of Israel is the least of its crimes? Or of the UK, or other criminal states? We know the answer, and it is not an attractive one, undermining the integrity of the call for boycott.

I have always been skeptical about academic boycotts. There may be overriding reasons, but in general I think that those channels should be kept open. As for boycotts in general, they are a tactic, not a principle. Like other tactics, we have to evaluate them in terms of their likely consequences.

Activists from Baghdad to Berkeley to Brandeis are crying for sanctions and boycotts, effectively trying to stop Israel from helping the world and her neighbors advance in technology, healthcare, and agriculture, to stop Israelis from hiring Palestinians in Rawabi, and from helping traumatized Yazidi women.

When incarceration in prison failed to stop the activists, Israel crushed the boycott by imposing heavy fines, and seizing and disposing of equipment, furnishings and goods from local stores, factories and homes. But you could be subjected to the same treatment for less; a common, non-violent Palestinian form of protest in those days was the use of graffiti to express resistance. This often led to the arrest and collective punishment of the entire family of the perpetrator.

I’m a firm believer that the international community must boycott Israel and pursue it for war crimes in the international courts. I also believe that the only possible and acceptable resolution at this point is a one-state solution. My vision is for us to live in a single democratic state where everyone is equal, Muslim, Christian, and Jew. Judaism is a religion, just like Islam. It is a different way of worshipping the same God we call Allah, and we respect that. But Zionism is a political ideology that says Judaism is not only a religion, but primarily a nationality—and that it needs a country. Not just any country, but our country, and that it needs this country to be for Jews alone. Zionism has taken our country, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims have lived for centuries, and made it a country that is ruled by and for Jews alone.

This has been one of Israel’s worst fears, so much so that the state launched a vigorous campaign to criminalize BDS through legislation. Its top ally, the United States, has also attacked and criminalized the movement. Since 2014, state and local legislatures and even the U.S. Congress have enacted more than one hundred measures penalizing groups and businesses that boycott Israel. Thirty-two U.S. states have passed anti-boycott laws—this in a country that claims to uphold free speech. In its fierce crackdown on the movement, the United States has followed Israel’s lead in dishonestly branding BDS as anti-Semitic. But it’s not anti-Semitic. It’s anti-Zionist, and conflating the two not only is dangerous, but it dismisses our valid grievances as a population denied our human rights and our rightful land. Once again, as Palestinians, we are punished if we protest violently and nonviolently.

Khalida explained to us that while it was very important for us to use international law and international humanitarian law as a mechanism to advance our cause for self-determination and equality, we had to understand that our fate ultimately depended on politics. Many politicians around the world were willing to sacrifice the rights of people and turn a blind eye to violations, especially when it came to Israel’s occupation. She reminded us that international law had been created by colonial powers and was disproportionately applied to serve their interests. It frustrated me to realize the limitations of international law we faced as Palestinians seeking justice. I now understood that it would never serve as a silver bullet for our cause, given how countries like the United States shielded Israel from any sort of punitive measures. Holding Israel accountable via international law would have to be accompanied by other strategies, like boycotts and divestment.

As many of us have witnessed, BDS tactics are brilliant. Boycott has never been its aim; what university would go along with such a childish, antiacademic idea? Its aim has always been to bombard campuses with an endless stream of anti-Israel resolutions. The charges may vary from season to season, the authors may rotate, and it matters not whether a resolution passes or fails, nor whether it is condemned or hailed. The victory lies in having a stage, a microphone, and a finger pointing at Israel saying, 'On trial!

The original documents contained racist and derogatory language by Israeli officials toward Haitians, mocking their poverty and skin color, and so Judge Brenner claimed that this was a reason not to allow them into the public realm. Files, she wrote, which “include the use of insulting terminology that was accepted about fifty years ago and which today is perceived in a particularly negative light may damage the country’s image and foreign relations.” Brenner also worried that allowing the documents to be made public might assist the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose goal is nothing short of the complete delegitimization of Israel’s right to exist. That’s what my speech to the UN was all about. In reading parts of that speech, you’ll start to see why this issue

Again and again, the Islamists stated that the Western intervention [in Iraq] was directed against the Muslim people and not against one political leader [Saddam Hussein] who did wrong. As a proof of this theory, they mentioned that the military and economic boycott, imposed by the "so-called security council", was sufficient to realise the two pretended aims of the US intervention: the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait and the destruction of the Iraqi military power. Ḥamās deplored the undifferentiated bombing of military and civilian targets that proved the "extent of the Western hatred of Islam and the Muslims" (madā ḅaqdihim ‘alā alIslām). This "ideological concept" (tas ṣawwur ‘aqā’ idī) was said to link the West and the Jews more than just economic and security interests. According to Ḥamās, one of the true goals of the Western invasion was the "establishment of the ‘Greater Israel’" as laid down in the texts of the Talmud. The invasion of Iraq should "facilitate Israel to conquer Jordan" (ghazw al-‘urdun).

In a controversial talk with Jeff the previous March—conspicuously made when Netanyahu was in flight to Washington—the president again warned Israel of its growing isolation in the world and vulnerability to boycotts. “I took it to be a little bit of a veiled threat,” Goldberg later told Charlie Rose, interpreting Obama’s remark as “nice little Jewish state you got there, I’d hate to see something happen to it.

An Israeli stamp in your passport will deny you entry to Bahrain. This is because Bahrain, along with most Arab countries, is part of what is known as the Arab Boycott. The aim of the boycott is to deny companies or persons having dealings with Israel access to Bahrain or other Arab countries. For many years, Pepsi Cola was the only cola beverage available in Bahrain and many Arab countries because Coca Cola had a plant in Israel. The Arab boycott list has been relaxed and Coca Cola is now available in Bahrain. Any person overtly having dealings with Israel is denied entry into Bahrain. This will be judged based on whether there is an Israeli visa in your passport. The Israelis are aware of this and often help visitors by issuing a special visa card rather than putting a chop or stamp in their passports. According

Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel, instead of a president who seeks to go to the United Nations to end-run Congress and the American people. Imagine a president who says “I will honor the Constitution, and under no circumstances will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.” Imagine a president who says “We will stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism, and we will call it by its name. We will defend the United States of America.

Unlike at my apartment on Euclid, where life ran at an orderly and predictable pace, where my parents’ concerns rarely extended beyond keeping our family happy and on track for success, the Jacksons seemed caught up in something larger, messier, and seemingly more impactful. Their engagement was outward; their community was big, their mission important. Santita and her siblings were being raised to be politically active. They knew how and what to boycott. They marched for their father’s causes. They went on his work trips, visiting places like Israel and Cuba, New York and Atlanta. They’d stood on stages in front of big crowds and were learning to absorb the anxiety and controversy that came with having a father, maybe especially a Black father, in public life.

The two real fathers of Israeli hi-tech are the Arab boycott and Charles de Gaulle, because they forced on us the need to go and develop an industry. —YOSSI VARDI

After the war, the Arab states unleashed a new weapon in the form of an oil boycott. The Western world’s need for fuel drove the Europeans away from Israel. Developing nations broke their ties with the Jewish state, seeing it as an imperialist oppressor of the Palestinians. The economy was hamstrung from the call-up of reservists; Israel spent an enormous sum on arms in 1974, fearful of a replay of the previous year’s war. The government was forced to implement austerity measures that citizens chafed at.

Due to enemies of the Jews flooding social media with anti-Israel propaganda, a recent study found that anti-Semitism has skyrocketed about 50% on America’s college campuses. The number one contributor to the rise of Jew-hatred in American universities is the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement.      The Islamist-inspired BDS campaign against the Nation

Given that Israel has a profoundly democratic political system, the freest press in the Middle East, a fiercely independent judiciary and astonishing religious and racial diversity within its universities, including affirmative action for Arab students, the charge is rather strange. Made more so when you consider the state of human rights in Israel’s neighborhood. As we speak, Syria’s government is dropping “barrel bombs” filled with nails, shrapnel and other instruments of terror on its own cities. Where is the ASA boycott of Syria? And of Iran, which hangs political, religious and even sexual dissidents and has no academic freedom at all? Or Egypt, where Christians are being openly persecuted? Or Turkey, Saudi Arabia or, for that matter, massively repressive China and Russia?

Now, it's are you now, have you ever been, and will you ever be in the future a supporter of non-violent boycotts against Israeli violations of international law? That's an outrage.

These tactics are not new. They have been used against Israeli speakers in the past and are part of the broader effort known as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS. Founded in 2005 by Palestinian organizations, it advocates for the following: (1) boycotting Israeli-made products and services, as well as public events in which Israelis participate; (2) the divestment by governments and private institutions of investments in Israeli companies; and (3) the establishment of international sanctions against Israel. Its goal is to punish Israel for what it terms Israel’s “apartheid” policies toward Israeli and Palestinian Arabs.

The boycott in the academic world today against Israelis has its roots, in some measure, in the 2001 United Nations–sponsored Durban World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance. There were actually two gatherings in Durban—the official United Nations conference and one sponsored by a group of about three thousand nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The discussion about Israel at both meetings was vituperative and overshadowed all other issues on the meetings’ agendas. The final declaration adopted by the NGO forum laid the groundwork for the BDS movement by equating Zionism with racism and calling for a boycott of Israel.

One of the main accusations and “proof” of the need for a boycott is that Zabludowicz has invested in Palantir. Its “main offense”: cooperation with the NSA and other secret services of exclusively democratic nations. Instead of describing Palantir, which is currently also playing a role in supporting Ukraine in its defense against the Russian war of aggression and in Israel in its defense against Hamas terror, as an important instrument in the international fight against terrorism, i.e. as a quasi-protective power of democracy, it is depicted as the epitome of evil in the woke milieu. Supporting Palantir is a welcome reason to cancel an art collection.

One of the main accusations and “proof” of the need for a boycott is that Zabludowicz has invested in Palantir. Its “main offense”: cooperation with the NSA and other secret services of exclusively democratic nations. Instead of describing Palantir, which is currently also playing a role in supporting Ukraine in its defense against the Russian war of aggression and in Israel in its defense against Hamas terror, as an important instrument in the international fight against terrorism, i.e. as a quasi-protective power of democracy, it is depicted as the epitome of evil in the woke milieu. Supporting Palantir is a welcome reason to cancel an art collection. Increasingly long lists of artists who have withdrawn their work from the Zabludowicz Collection are appearing on the Internet. The demands are coming thick and fast. It is not about weakening, it is about “the end,” the destruction of the collection. The anti-Israeli and antisemitic BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), which among other things propagates the boycott of Israeli products all over the world (in sad continuity with the Nazi call “Don’t buy from Jews”), is largely behind the activities. The climax of the hate campaign was a conversation that Anita and Poju Zabludowicz had to have with the board of the Tate Gallery in spring 2022. In a friendly and understanding manner, Anita Zabludowicz was advised to resign from the Tate Council in order to prevent damage to the museum. Anita Zabludowicz politely asked what exactly they were accusing her of, what she had done wrong. The answer was a shrug of the shoulders. They feared the damage that some outraged artists and curators committed to the woke movement might do to the Tate. In short, the Tate, one of the most powerful cultural institutions in the world, bowed to the Zeitgeist. Following instead of leading.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the unprecedented nature of Western outrage and sanctions against it, indicates what is possible when there is unquestioning uniformity of opinion against an enemy state’s actions. It’s inconceivable that similar boycott, divestment, and sanction initiatives would be taken against other human rights abusers, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel—all friends of Washington and London. Our friends can kill and maim with impunity.

PACBI’s close links with terrorist organizations are proven facts. Together with the PNIF terror council, PACBI coordinates a range of undisputed terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and the PFLP. PACBI members represent the BNC (the Palestinian branch of the boycott movement) at conferences and in front of international partners, and both organizations share the same staff, websites, addresses, and mailing lists.

A condemnation of boycotts of the State of Israel passed the US House of Representatives by 398 to seventeen in 2019.

As of January 2020, twenty-eight states had laws or policies that penalize businesses, organizations, or individuals for engaging in or calling for boycotts against Israel.66 The laws usually penalize businesses or individuals for refusing to sign a document that commits them not to participate in any way in boycotts against Israel. Some of the laws have real penalties, while others are merely declarations that the state opposes BDS.