Only a mass boycott of Israel can halt Gaza genocide. Here’s how

Israel’s resumed bombing campaign over the Gaza Strip comes as no surprise, but that makes it no less devastating. Defense for Children International Palestine reported that Tuesday was the deadliest day for children in the Gaza Strip in recorded history.

The renewed bombing comes weeks after Israel had already cut off humanitarian aid again, aid that was already insufficient to address the extreme levels of depravation intentionally inflicted on the Palestinian people as a part of Israel’s genocidal war.

It is hard not to give in to despair as the horrific scenes from Israel’s attacks flood our screens again, but the Palestinian people depend on the solidarity movement to take action, not to be paralysed by grief and horror.

At the same time, we must not be complacent by thinking that our current campaigns are sufficient.

We need to be clear-eyed about the gravity and urgency of this moment, and to escalate with new actions and tactics that help to build the mass movement against Israel’s apartheid. We can do this especially, through boycott and divestment actions that put pressure on companies that are profiting from genocide.

Yesterday, Palestine Solidarity Campaign launched a new front in our BDS work — the Don’t Buy Apartheid campaign, which asks individuals, shops, cafes, restaurants, and businesses to actively boycott Israeli fresh produce, as well as Coca-Cola products (including their brands like Schweppes, Sprite, Innocent and Costa).

Actively boycotting means taking a step beyond just refusing to buy — it means working together with others to convince businesses in your local area not to stock those items.

Israel’s apartheid regime depends on its business ties around the world. Israeli agricultural exporters ship fruit and vegetables to supermarkets across Britain, originating on Israeli settlement farms and facilities built on land stolen from Palestinians, and grown or produced using resources, including water, looted from Palestinians.

We’ve all seen it on the shelves of shops: avocadoes, peppers, herbs, potatoes and dates. When shops sell this produce, they are profiting from Israel’s land grabs and ethnic cleansing. 

Coca-Cola’s franchisee in Israel operates facilities in an illegal settlement on stolen Palestinian land, therefore helping to solidify Israel’s colonisation and military occupation.

To buy Israeli is to kill Gaza

Over the past 17 months, millions of people here and around the world have witnessed the unprecedented crimes Israel has committed in its genocide in Gaza.

Moved to act, people of conscience have joined solidarity actions, including the demonstrations that have swept every town and city in Britain.

This mobilisation is so important, and of course, we won’t stop organising these protests. Last Saturday, we protested at the Israeli embassy in London.

But we also need to step up our campaigns, as Palestinians continue to endure Israel’s violence, including its attacks on the Gaza Strip, and its daily military invasions in the occupied West Bank.

When we’re not in the streets, it’s more urgent than ever we develop our boycott campaigns to take aim at the corporations that enable Israel’s settler-colonialism, military occupation and apartheid.

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Many of us already choose not to buy Israeli produce and avoid companies enabling Israeli apartheid, including Coca-Cola. These personal decisions have the potential to make a great impact if we go beyond individual actions and build them into mass boycott campaigns.

Whilst I may feel morally satisfied when I refuse to buy an Israeli avocado, the company profiting doesn’t feel it so long as I am the only one.

Likewise, long lists of products to boycott might help you to make choices in your daily shop, but risks spreading our energy too thin. When we all commit to boycotting the same products, our united strength is felt in one place. Successful boycotts combine collective action with a laser-like focus that is clear and accessible for everyone to adopt. That is how we can maximise our power and show visible results.

When we launched the Don’t Buy Apartheid campaign this week, we heard from activists in Bristol who are hard at work reaching out to create an ‘Apartheid Free Zone’ across their city. Already, some streets have shop after shop with posters in the window advertising the fact that they have pledged not to stock Israeli produce.

Crucially, the activists achieved this through positive relationship-building with local shop owners, and by asking the community to commit to supporting ‘Apartheid Free’ shops. The hours of conversations and canvassing have been producing great results, but the campaign also creates room for everyone to get involved no matter how little time they have to commit – from refusing to buy complicit goods to joining a one-off protest action.

This new campaign is on top of rather than instead of our ongoing work mobilising large demonstrations; pushing banks, local councils and universities to divest from arms companies selling weapons to Israel; and campaigning for an arms embargo.

We will need a combination of all this work, and much more, to finally halt Israel’s genocide and topple apartheid. More pointedly, we will need to constantly evolve and innovate new ways to force the British government, intransigent as ever, to end its ongoing support for Israel.

As the bombs rain down on the Gaza Strip again, we have no time to spare in our urgent work in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Ryvka Barnard is the Deputy Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK.

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