BDS is counter-productive. We need to crack down on Israeli settlements instead
The Biden administration is clearly exasperated with the Netanyahu regime in Israel. Netanyahu’s farright stance is upending regional interests, and creating a chaotic hellscape in Gaza, without a viable solution to prevent another horrific attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens or stop the attacks coming from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel needs viable state partners. So do the Palestinians, and so does the world.
Last week, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, announced that the United States has overturned Trump-era policies and returned to the longstanding US foreign policy that views Israeli settlements in the West Bank as “inconsistent with international law”.
This clarification needs to be put into action. The US needs to see a twostate reality emerge from the horrific rubble of the war between Israel and Hamas, and Joe Biden can – and must – do more to react to Netanyahu’s intransigence. One of the most important steps is continuing to isolate the Israeli settlements politically and draw lines between the settlements and Israel proper.
Here’s a short list of steps the Biden administration can begin taking immediately: label goods manufactured in the settlements as coming from the occupied territories, not from Israel. Stop funding any binational research from institutions inside the settlements, including Ariel University. Treat settlers differently from Israeli citizens when applying for the new US visa waiver program that will offer automatic visas to Israeli citizens. Scrutinize US-based non-profits that raise money for the settlements through existing IRS laws. If an Israeli company based in the occupied territories wants to apply for a US patent, don’t allow it to be labeled as from Israel.
Here are more: demand from Israel strong policing of any settler violence and ramifications for violence against Palestinian civilians. Condition aid on a percentage of what Israel uses to build any new settlements or housing in settlements. Make clear that the US is watching the actions of Israel’s racist and fascist minister of homeland security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, as he seeks to remake Israel’s police and prison guards in his own image – turning water cannons on families of hostages who are protesting in the streets for their loved ones’ return as well as placing Palestinian prisoners in dangerous isolation and deprivation cells without recourse.
The Biden administration also needs to take steps to strengthen the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. First, the US can demand that Israel negotiate with and deal with the Palestinian Authority (PA), with whom Israel, after all, signed an agreement based on the Oslo accords, especially when it comes to planning and negotiating any scenarios for the “day after” the Israel-Hamas war.
This has to include Israel transferring Palestinian tax funds that Israel legally collects as per the Oslo-related Paris protocol, not holding back the funds as the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich – a settler leader himself – has demanded or maneuvering a third-party transfer as recently happened via Norway.
The US should help ease the PA’s incumbent president, Mahmoud Abbas, into a ceremonial position and bring more technical expertise into the PA leadership. This is especially important because the PA appears to be creating a new, more technocratic government, perhaps with either Mohammed Mustafa or Salam Fayyad – both respected economists – as prime minister. A new government may be able to revitalize the PA and chart a new path forward.
The US could host a regional conference – with Israel and the PA as participants – that will talk about a regional future that integrates Israel into the region only if there is a viable Palestinian state, too.
Here in the US, it would be important to reopen the Palestinian mission that was shuttered by Trump. This may be more difficult since it needs congressional approval, but figuring out any symbolic way to move this forward without Congress would be helpful. Similarly, reopening the US consulate that was shuttered in Jerusalem and had served the Palestinian community outside of the protocols of the US embassy to Israel would be equally important – but also difficult, due to resistance from the current Israeli government, and so needs some creative diplomatic thinking to create a visible presence there.
Like Biden, progressives in the US and across the world need to differentiate between the state of Israel within the “green line”, the internationally recognized 1967 borders, and the occupied Palestinian territories – from which a viable Palestinian state must emerge. The myopic idea that Israel will disappear or morph into a state in which Jews are the minority is not realistic – or moral – and it won’t offer a lifeline to the very Palestinians that protesters claim to want to protect. Ignoring the Israeli left and promoting boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) campaigns that are often aimed precisely at the very opponents of the occupation – for instance, artists and those in academia – is counterproductive at the least, harmful at the most.
The real beneficiary of the BDS campaign since its inception has been the Israeli right. BDS has had close to zero effect on the Israeli economy. Indeed, the only issues that caused downgrading of the Israeli financial markets was the Netanyahu-inspired judicial coup attempt of 2023 and now the war with Hamas.
Besides, even the staunchest BDS supporters probably violate their own declarations – especially if they use any of numerous technologies and technology companies from Israel, including Wix, Mobileye (which is in most US manufactured cars now), a USB flash drive, Waze (now owned by Google Maps), many computer firewalls, Nvidia AI (which just purchased Israeli Mellanox Technologies) and more.
Many of the creators and investors behind these technologies are also leaders in the huge protests against Netanyahu and his government. Key tech leaders have also worked with the Palestinian tech sector in the occupied territories and in Gaza. While the protests are more centered on Israeli domestic issues than the occupation, there is an effort by the nascent Israeli left to change that.
The Israeli left is struggling and diverse. It is Jewish and Arab, Zionist and non-Zionist. But it – along with a politically engaged centrist population – is core to the Palestinians’ future, as well as that of Israelis. There is a sophisticated and dedicated human and civil rights sector that works inside Israel and with Gaza and the occupied territories and is challenged on a daily basis by the Netanyahu government. It is to these people that both Biden and progressives should be speaking.
Differentiating Israel proper from the settlements and occupied territories will clarify this – both in terms of international policies and in building progressive alliances. Only by dealing with politics and people as they exist can change happen.
Jo-Ann Mort writes frequently about Israel/Palestine for a range of publications. She is the co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel?