By Thawab Shibly & Nick Kabat

In 1959, the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) made an appeal for international boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) to be applied against South Africa, whose apartheid regime had begun in 1948, the same year as the creation of the state of Israel.  People around the world quickly heeded the ANC call, particularly at the campus level.

By 1988, 155 campuses had divested from companies operating in conjunction with the Apartheid regime. At the state level, anti-apartheid demonstrators achieved considerable success. By the end of the 1980, twenty-three countries had applied sanctions against South Africa. And then finally in 1990, thirty-one years after the ANC call for BDS was made and under extreme international pressure, the apartheid system began to come to a halt.

Now, twenty years later in Israel and Palestine, another group of people live oppressed under a system that both demeans and dehumanizes them. Countless sympathetic cries from activists all over the world have done nothing to change their situation.  They still are denied basic food and medical supplies.  Their homes are still being demolished, their lands confiscated, and their basic rights and dignities taken away. 

Taking from the example of South Africa, Palestinian civil society has made a unanimous call for BDS to be applied against Israel until it meets the following three demands:

“-It ends its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantles the Wall between Israel and Palestine;

-It recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinians and citizens of Israel to full equality; and

-Respects, protects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”

UB Students for Justice in Palestine has chosen to endorse the BDS call because Palestinians don’t need our sympathy anymore; they need action. And more importantly it puts this global issue in a local context; we may not be able to witness the conflict first-hand but we can look at how locally sold products fund oppressive Israeli policies and boycott those products.

This will apply needed economic pressure on Israel, which is the only non-violent way to demonstrate the global discontent with their policies. This is a tested and proven strategy as shown by

the anti-South African apartheid movement.

Lastly, if not BDS, then what? There is no better non-violent strategy out there. Sure, traditional activism like protests is more familiar but honestly, they aren’t actions that measurably affect the situation. Protesting has become so redundant and easy, even a tea bagger can do it.

For more info on the BDS movement, visit http://www.bdsmovement.net/

Nicolas Kabat, who is Jewish, and Thawab Shibly, who is Muslim, are undergraduate students at the University at Buffalo and members of UB Students for Justice in Palestine, a diverse group of students of all backgrounds including both Jewish and Muslim members. The group works to promote justice, human rights, and self-determination for the Palestinian people. UB SJP condemns all acts of unlawful violence, or violence that indiscriminately targets civilians or civilian infrastructure, committed by either side in the course of the conflict.