What forced 500 Palestinian families to lose good-paying, high quality jobs in the West Bank? No, it wasn’t Israel, it was anti-Israel action through what is known as BDS, or the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. These 500 Palestinian families were left “unemployed and without means of supporting their families” all in the name of “freeing” the Palestinian people. The company, SodaStream, recently purchased by PepsiCo for $3.2 billion, was forced to relocate from the West Bank following intense targeting by BDS activists.
The BDS movement harmed the Palestinian people by pressuring SodaStream. They continue to do so without the overall support or acquiescence of the Palestinian “man-on-the-street” or even Palestinian leadership. Boycotting Israel would harm New Mexico’s economy – since 1996 New Mexico has exported more than $4.4 billion of goods and services to Israel.
BDS Is Not Supported by Palestinians, For Good Reason
President Mahmoud Abbas stunned reporters and Palestinian activists alike by stating in 2013 that the Palestinians do not support a general boycott of Israel. Many Palestinians do not like BDS, since their economy is dependent upon Israel. A Forbes analysis by Carrie Sheffield reveals the economic reality: “Israel (population 8.3 million) has GDP of $291 billion, the Palestinian Territories (population 4.1 million), $11.3 billion. As is evident, Palestinian sales to Israel accounted for about 81% of Palestinian exports and less than a percentage point of Israeli GDP.”
“There are 14 Israeli industrial parks in The West Bank, with 788 factories. Overall, these factories employ over 11,000 Palestinians, and pay two to three times what Palestinians make elsewhere on average.” Boycotting Israeli goods does minimal damage to Israel’s GDP, but does great harm to the Palestinian economy. Israel invests heavily in Palestine, while the rest of the world doesn’t bother. No wonder Palestinian leaders generally oppose the BDS Movement.
What do BDS Promoters Really Want?
There is no doubt that BDS promoters really want to destroy Israel. While there may be some well-intentioned individuals who believe BDS is the right way to get Israel to capitulate to Palestinian demands, the BDS originators and promoters have a final solution in mind: they want to eliminate Israel as a Jewish state and replace it with another Arab-Muslim state they’d call Palestine. So even a conditional BDS participant is naively playing into the hands of the radical BDS supporters, for the BDS “demands” are impossible for Israel to meet, and harden the impasse in which Israelis and Palestinians find themselves.
Here is our analysis of BDS “demands:”
1) Ending Israel’s “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling “the Wall.” Of course, Israel did not occupy the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights before the 1967 aggression from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Israel unilaterally withdrew from and has not “occupied” Gazan territory since 2005. The Golan Heights and the West Bank have always been disputed territory – the Golan didn’t become part of Syria until 1944 in an arbitrary decision by the French – even after Jews had purchased large swaths of land in the Golan Heights before that (going back to 1887). The West Bank had been a joint Arab and Israeli mottled landscape before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
What the BDS promoters really mean is: all of what is now Israel and the disputed territories is really Arab land and Jews should leave it or become a minority once again, perhaps subject to the dhimmi laws of Islam. (For a detailed look at the Dhimmitude laws, see Bat Ye’or’s 2002 text Islam and Dhimmitude, Where Civilizations Collide .)
2) Equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel. If by “equal rights” the BDS supporters mean Arab citizens of Israel should have equal rights with Jewish citizens, then this “demand” is fulfilled – Israel’s laws don’t discriminate between Arab, Jew, and Christian. (Except that Israeli Arabs, to their benefit, do not have to serve in Israel’s army.) Israel is the only Middle Eastern country with equal rights for all of its citizens. While there may be social and economic gaps between Israeli Arabs and Jews, there are no legal impediments for Arabs to vote, participate in Parliament, obtain education, etc. Indeed there are Arab members of Knesset, and at least one Christian-Arab on the Israeli Supreme Court; a Muslim-Arab was nominated in 2018.
3) The right of return of Palestinians to reclaim lands taken by Israel in 1948. Meeting this demand would effectively end the State of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. The continuing Palestinian demand that its (variously reported 5 million or 7 million) “refugees” be allowed to return to what was Israel under the 1949 Armistice lines – never internationally recognized borders per se, but solely cessation of hostilities until replaced by permanent peace treaties, which Israel has concluded with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) – would dilute the Jewish proportion from approximately 75% to 47% (assuming 5 million Palestinians would return to Israel pre-1949 lines). The reality is that based on most refugee methods there may be only about 30,000 true Palestinian refugees left at this point – but that’s another matter.
In Their Own Words
The BDS Movement was organized in the early 2000s by non-governmental organizations affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, helping to continue the decades-old illegal Arab League Boycott. This “movement” frequently uses misrepresentations of fact and law while seeking to stigmatize Israel through ad hominem comparisons with apartheid-era South Africa and Nazi Germany.
We listed above the the BDS supporter purported “demands.” What do they really want? Here are a few outspoken BDS’ers own spoken words:
BDS movement founder Omar Barghouti: “Most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine,” adding that, “Palestinians and Arabs in general have never, and will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state.” Anyone interested in the facts can watch a video produced by the BDS watchdog group Canary Mission, in which Barghouti himself clarifies that the movement is based on lies. Further Barghouti proclaims: “(The one state solution means) a unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority.”
As’ad AbuKhalil: “The real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel….That should be stated as an unambiguous goal. 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.”
BDS activist Michael Warschawski: “Peace – or better yet, justice – cannot be achieved without a total decolonization (one can say de-Zionization) of the Israeli state.”
Israel hater and BDS activist Normal Finkelstein: “There’s no Israel. That’s what it’s really about.”
We could go on – many more BDS supporters have expressed these same sentiments: the goal of BDS is to eliminate Israel as a Jewish state.
The BDS Movement Undermines Peace Efforts
SodaStream in the West Bank was a model of what could be – Palestinians and Israelis working and socializing side-by-side in peace. There are many others. For example more than 8,000 people are employed in the Barkan industrial zone in the West Bank, as reported by Ynet:
“The Barkan industrial zone […] has for years served as a focal point of coexistence in the workplace and is presented to the world as a center for joint—Israeli and Palestinian—economic success. It is located along Route 5, a short drive from Rosh HaAyin, and has more than 100 different factories that provide a livelihood for those living on on both sides of the Green Line.”
“Boycotts against Israel thwart the important goal of promoting peace between Palestinian-Arabs and Israelis. Indeed boycotts work against social normalization, economic cooperation, and shared opportunity. BDS creates false hopes among the Palestinians that BDS boycotts alone will force Israel to accede to Palestinian demands without having to negotiate. The only way to lasting peace is for the two parties to once again sit down at the table and negotiate.”
In its rhetoric and in practice the BDS Movement rejects the peace process, routinely dismisses every past peace effort – from the 1978 Camp David Accords to the Oslo Process to the current administration’s attempts to get the parties to a negotiating table, and makes no attempt to address issues of reconciliation and coexistence. They reject any Palestinian responsibility or accountability.
Further the BDS Movement rejects free speech and multiculturalism by haranguing and shutting down artists, musicians, scholars, academics, and others from working with Israelis to establish understanding. If only one narrative – the radical Palestinian narrative – is permitted, then no reconciliation or peace negotiation is possible.
How can we promote peace by fighting BDS?
- First, educate your friends, relatives, acquaintances, and elected officials, making sure they understand the real intent of BDS promoters, the harm BDS does to Palestinians, and the barrier to peace BDS represents.
- Second, make an economic statement: demand retailers carry Israeli goods, and then buy them. Make sure the retailers you patronize know you are opposed to BDS. Tell entertainers and others in the arts and academia that BDS is wrong.
- Third, encourage your members of Congress in the House to move the equivalent of the 2019 Senate Bill 1’s portion permitting anti-BDS legislation at the state level through the House (it is stuck right now).
- Finally, request that your NM state legislators support an anti-BDS bill in the New Mexico legislature, and encourage Governor Lujan-Grisham to sign an executive order banning the state from contracting with businesses that support the BDS movement.
Alarmed by the blatant anti-Semitism inherent in BDS, a number of state governments have moved to put forward anti-BDS legislation. In April 2015, Tennessee became the first state in the United States to pass a resolution condemning BDS. As of October, 2019, a total of 24 states have passed anti-BDS legislation, and in 5 states Governors have signed executive orders (Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Wisconsin) banning contracting with companies that support BDS. Many other states have legislation pending.
Components of an anti-BDS bill may include withholding access to government contracts, investment divestment from companies that support the boycott of Israel, and/or creating a list of companies that boycott Israel/based on national origin. Most anti-BDS state-level legislation simply withholds state government contracts and procurement from organizations that trade based on national origin or that boycott companies or countries that are U.S. allies.
The map below shows the states that have enacted or have pending anti-BDS legislation. Nearly all state legislation, whether with primarily Democratic or Republican majorities, have passed with large, bipartisan support. For example, in California in 2016 the state senate approved the bill by a vote of 34 to 1 and the state assembly passed it by 69 to 1. The bills passed unanimously in both South Carolina and Illinois.
In an American Jewish Congress initiative in 2017, the governors of all 50 US states and the Mayor of Washington, DC signed a declaration condemning the BDS movement as antithetical to American values.
New Mexico and Israel
Noticeably absent in the map above is New Mexico. Yet, over the past ten years Israel has been New Mexico’s number one export market. Since 1996 New Mexico has exported $4.4 billion to Israel, generating thousands of New Mexico jobs and millions in tax revenues. In 2014 and 2016 New Mexico exported over $800 million and $500 million of goods and services to Israel respectively. Second only to exports to Mexico. While these numbers have been diminishing in the past three years because of Intel-ABQ’s move to Phoenix, the potential for future investment like Intel’s is critically important for New Mexico’s economy – we have to be sure that we have a trade-friendly state, without export barriers that BDS supporters desire. Indeed, Intel just announced they would be manufacturing a new class of data storage, the 3D XPoint, resulting in an increase in employees in Rio Rancho beginning in 2018, likely generating more revenues in export to Israel.
Many of our communities have strong ties to Israeli companies; for example, Keter Plastics, a company with international headquarters in Herzlia, Israel, has built a $36 million production facility in Belen. NM has maintained a Middle East trade and investment promotion office headquartered in Jerusalem for over 15 years and many New Mexico companies have travelled there for trade shows.
At the bottom of this page is a list of 25 companies that do business with Israel and enhance New Mexico’s economy.
One last point – anti-BDS laws do not limit free speech
Some have posited that anti-BDS laws are an infringement on our first amendment individual rights to speak freely about Israel and its dispute with its Palestinian neighbors. Nothing could be further from the truth. The laws regulate only commercial speech, which is not guaranteed under the US Constitution and has been regulated for centuries. For half a century Congress has combated anti-Israel boycotts and other discriminatory activity under the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Tax Reform Act of 1976. Congress has also passed anti-BDS measures in the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015, which prohibit the establishment of trade barriers or investment barriers for US companies in Israel.
The federal laws passed in the Senate (as part of S1 in 2019) and House (the equivalent legislation has not yet been introduced in this congressional session) explicitly state that this is an extension of these prior acts to non-state international governmental entities like the UN or the European Union to battle the UN Human Rights Council attempts to blacklist US companies that do business with Israel by imposing “restrictive trade practices of boycotts,” and they do not regulate individual’s rights to speak for or against the BDS movement.
In Conclusion
The bottom line? Bassem Eid, a Jericho resident, lifelong Palestinian, and Founder 
and former director of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, has said it best:
Outside Israel and the Palestinian territories, much of the world sees us through the lenses of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (“BDS”) movement – which Palestinians largely do not support. Since the Palestinian-controlled economy is so weak, many Palestinians are employed by Israeli firms — the only source of good jobs for Palestinians. The BDS movement, however, is not interested in hearing the Palestinians’ pleas because they would rather see Palestinians live in poverty than relent in their pursuit against Israel…
The BDS movement, which claims to be our friend, is determined to blame Israel for all our problems, and refuses to acknowledge the true issues. Instead, they are engaged in a self-serving narrative aimed at making them look like heroes who are supposedly helping the Palestinians. If they truly were our friends, they would open their eyes and help resolve the real issues.
If so-called pro-Palestinian activists truly want to help the Palestinians, then they should demand freedom, human rights, democracy, and justice for the Palestinians. They should demand that the incitement of Palestinians stop. They should assist Israel in creating jobs in the West Bank for Palestinians. They should assist Palestinians in developing an economy while ensuring that the money is not used to enrich the terrorists’ rule or to augment the terrorists’ arsenal. The should encourage Palestinians to live in peace with Jews. If and when these things happen, a permanent solution will be found. Until then it is waste of time to even talk about it.
[In 2016 SFMEW brought Eid to Santa Fe. You can view his talk here.]
Martin Luther King, anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism
Some NM companies throughout the state that do business with Israel.
- AquaAccess, ABQ
- Aquila Technologies, ABQ
- Basic Dental Implants, ABQ
- CVI Laser Optics, ABQ
- Distar, ABQ
- Intel, Rio Rancho
- IntelliCyt, ABQ
- Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts, ABQ
- Keter Plastics, Belen
- Knoll Bio Products, Santa Fe
- Lase-R Shield, Las Cruces
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos
- Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, ABQ
- Lumidigm,ABQ
- MIOX, ABQ
- Netflix, ABQ
- NM Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro
- New Mexico State University (with Etgar Agricultural Solutions)
- Preferred Produce, Deming/Columbus
- Sagebrush Technologies, ABQ
- San Miguel County, Las Vegas
- Stolar Horizon, Raton
- Trilumina, ABQ
- Ultra Health, Bernalillo
- UpSite Technologies, Santa Fe
- Wildflower International, Santa Fe