The BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions)
campaign against Israel began with the NGO Forum at the 2001 UN Durban Conference.
At that forum, hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) adopted a
strategy of using boycotts and other forms of political warfare to achieve the
“complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state.”
The boycott campaign involves
dozens of NGOs and is funded through tens of millions of dollars, euros, krona,
and pounds, provided primarily by European
governments, including indirectly via highly biased aid frameworks.
Since much of this European funding is secret, in violation of democratic
norms, not all the details are known.
A prime example is Coalition of Women for Peace(CWP),
an Israeli NGO that is a leader in the international BDS campaign that singles
out Israel. CWP runs the “Who Profits” campaign,
ostensiblyestablished “in
response to the Palestinian Call for boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) on
Israel.” “Who Profits” is central to the BDS lobby,identifying targets for anti-Israel
divestment and boycotts – including SodaStream, Israeli banks, and the Mekorot water company.
CWP is funded directly and
indirectly by a number of governments. In 2013, CWP received government funds
from the Netherlands, Spain,EU, Germany, Canada, and Ireland. CWP’s largest donor in 2013 (based on
the partial information that has been published) is Oxfam Novib, the Dutch branch of the Oxfam International network. Oxfam Novib
receives tens of millions of euros annually from the Dutch government, much of
which is used to fund radical political
advocacy NGOs, including anti-Israel groups such as CWP.
Despite this evidence, Oxfam has claimed that it does
not fund BDS-related activities. This denial was made in the context of the
organization’s demand that actress Scarlett Johansson, an “Oxfam ambassador,”
refuse to participate in an advertising campaign for an Israeli firm
(SodaStream). Johansson rejected this demand.
Many of CWP’s other funders are
church-based aid organizations. These groups fund
and promote BDS, and often include antisemitic themes and images in
their campaigns.
| 2013 Donor (partial list)* | Amount (in NIS) |
| Oxfam Novib (Netherlands) | 406,300 |
| ICCO (Netherlands) | 382,400 |
| NOVACT (Spain, EU) | 238,761 |
| EED (Germany) | 119,877 |
| Medico International(Germany) | 47,800 |
| United Church of Canada | 34,418 |
| Trocaire (Ireland) | 23,847 |
BDS leaders often claim that their
goals are limited to opposing the post-1967 war occupation and settlements, but
this is highly misleading. In fact, many admit that boycotts
are not only “a strategy to end only the 42-year military occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.” For instance, As’ad Abu Khalil, a central activist
in the U.S. wrote, “There should not be
any equivocation on the subject. Justice and freedom for the Palestinians are
incompatible with the existence of the state of Israel.”
Pro-BDS author Ahmed Moor stated, “Ending the
occupation doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean upending the Jewish state
itself…BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state.”
Omar Barghouti said that “The only
ethical solution is a (single) democratic, secular and civic state in historic
Palestine” (October 2012) and that this entails a “unitary
state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority” (December 2003).
As acknowledged by BDS ideologues
and stated in the declaration of the 2001 Durban NGO Forum, the objective of
BDS is the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state – using the strategy of
exploiting the rhetoric of human rights and false “apartheid” analogies to
demonize and isolate Israel.
* Reported under the Israeli NGO Foreign Government Funding Transparency Law (2011). Many donor governments and frameworks that channel funds to NGOs do not practice democratic transparency. As a result, details of funds to many Palestinian NGOs supported by Europe are unknown.
