As Israel bombards Gaza, BDS urges renewed economic pressure

BDS is urging consumers to vote with their wallets and economically pressure Israel to end its occupation of Palestine.

As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza intensifies and the Palestinian death toll mounts, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is issuing a fresh call to action for consumers around the world to vote with their wallets and bring economic pressure to bear on Israeli and multinational firms it labels as “complicit” in Israel’s abuse of Palestinian human rights. “There is a growing consensus that Israel now, like South Africa in the past, is an apartheid state that must be met with targeted sanctions, boycotts and divestment,” Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, told Al Jazeera. Launched in 2005 by 170 Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women’s organisations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and other Palestinian civil society groups, the group has gained support and met fierce institutional resistance in its mission to win justice for Palestine.