San Diego Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions

Recent Successes in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel

1- Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom company, sent an e-mail to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company." When contacted by The Nation, Ramsey said his decision wasn't political. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients, so it was purely commercially defensive."

2- French Giant company Veoilia, which has been the current operator of the subway system in Stockholm County for 10 years lost the contract to the MTR-cooperation. The contracts for the coming 8 years is worth 3,5 Billion EURO. Although the board for county's public transportation ensured the decision was based on commercial factors the debate about Veolias involvement in a controversial tramway project in Jerusalem (Jerusalem light railway) has been intense in Swedish media. It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.

3- In other arenas, the events happening in the UK provide much hope.
The irony of course that it was in the UK where the whole mess started when Balfour gave away a land he doesn’t own to a people he considered as a problem in Europe.

Protests that started when a group of pro-Palestine sympathizers occupied the Old Theatre of the London School of Economics spread to 8 other universities. These actions are very reminiscent of how the anti-apartheid divestment movement started in the early eighties. These actions promoted the director of the London School of Economics, Sir Howard Davies, issued a joint statement with student protesters saying he understood their concerns and backing a fundraising drive for scholarships for Palestinians.

On January 20th, The Lambeth Branch of UNISON, the second largest trade union in the UK, has voted to support sanctions against Israel.

On January 19, the Oxford City council backed boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

These encouraging actions occurred elsewhere in the world.

A group of 540 prominent Israeli academics and writers published a letter in The Guardian o 17 January 2009 supporting the boycott campaign. 900 US academics published an appeal on January 1st to president Obama calling for divestment and pressure against Israel. Sweden and Norway suspended fruit shipments from Israel causing produce to rot in Israeli warehouses.