BDS at 20: A failure on its own terms, a success on others

Last month marked the 20th anniversary of the official launch of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

The BDS movement targets a broad range of societal sectors: the UN and other international fora, national and local governments, academia, cultural institutions, trade unions, sports, LGBTQ+ sectors, political parties, and climate, racial, and Indigenous justice efforts.  And more.

But its self-described focus is economic: to make Israel pay such an unsustainable financial price that it will have no choice but to accept every Palestinian political demand.

This strategy exploitatively emulates the compelling example of the BDS campaign against apartheid South Africa, asserting it was the economic toll BDS imposed that pushed Pretoria to unravel its unconscionable racist system of apartheid.

The South African example provides BDS supporters with an additional utility: it associates Israel with that evil apartheid system. The net effect is that if BDS doesn’t win economically, it brands Israel as a pariah state, eroding its very legitimacy.

Unfortunately, they have made significant progress on that propaganda score.

Not so much on the economic front.

In the two decades since BDS was launched, Israel’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased from $147 billion to $583 billion, and Annual Household Income per Capita increased from $9,300 to $24,500. Its trade with the U.S. jumped from $24 billion to $37 billion, and the margin of Israel’s trade surplus with the U.S. increased 40%.

These numbers are that much more impressive when considering the almost two-year toll the current war(s) against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis have wrought on the Israeli economy.

Israel’s resilience to BDS’s economic pressure was also evident here in Illinois, one of the country’s BDS hotbeds. Between 2005 and 2015, Illinois exports to Israel increased by over two-thirds, and Israel’s exports to Illinois were up over 15%, and have continued to grow.

That good news, though, is no cause for us who oppose BDS to take a victory lap or become complacent, on either the economic or the public relations front.

A year ago, the Chairman of the Israeli Export Institute said, “BDS and boycotts have changed Israel’s global trade landscape…economic boycotts and BDS organizations present major challenges, and in some countries, we are forced to operate under the radar.”

BDS supporters dishonestly claim credit whenever a company does less business with Israel.  Yet in most cases, it is the usual ebb and flow of commerce and not anti-Israel animus that drives such business decisions.

For example, Starbucks’ closing its six Tel Aviv stores after an unsuccessful two-year trial was trumpeted as a success by BDS supporters (and too many BDS opponents). But they closed for no more sinister a reason than Israelis have distinct palates for their cups of Joe. [PS: The closure happened in 2003, two years before BDS was launched.]

Similarly, the BDS movement claims credit for McDonald’s periodic global sales declines, “forgetting” to comment when they invariably rise, usually higher than the earlier decline.

However, there are undoubtedly many corporations, especially in Europe, that are adopting BDS.  Most significant are the sovereign wealth and union pension funds that have divested their holdings in publicly traded Israeli companies.

High-profile BDS cases, like Ben and Jerry’s decision to stop selling its ice cream in the West Bank, which affected Palestinians as well as Israelis, grabbed headlines.  This example also highlights the duplicity of the BDS movement:  they claimed credit for the decision, though it fell far short of their demands to stop all trade with all Israel, within and beyond Israel’s 1967 borders.

Another BDS front requiring greater attention is that of companies issuing socially responsible ratings (also known as Environmental, Social, and Governance, ESG) for publicly traded companies. Several such companies have been found to base their ratings on biased criteria. With Bloomberg Intelligence estimating that ESG-related investments will surpass $50 trillion this year, the importance of this battlefield in the BDS war must not be underestimated.

If 20 years constitute a generation, then BDS’s first generation can be judged a failure on the economic front, but a scary and still-growing success on the public relations front.

In this, as in so many other aspects of Israel, the cup is both half full and half empty. We supporters have key roles to play, helping ensure that the cup doesn’t run dry, but rather runneth over.