Jew World Order

Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published in Arabic on the Palestinian website Metras. The article sheds light on the specific challenges of carrying out economic boycotts of Israel within the occupied lands of Palestine. It was written in the context of the National Economic Week boycott campaign in Palestine, which took place between June 6th to 12th.

The Palestinian National Economic Week (NEW) campaign, called “Buy from your hometown”, was launched in the wake of the latest uprising in Palestine. Through lectures, tours, and farmer’s markets in addition to selling posters and stickers promoting the boycott of Israel, NEW aimed at raising Palestinians’ consciousness of how economic policies strengthen colonial systems, and the importance of boycott in resisting and corroding colonial-economic structures. It called on Palestinians to boycott Israeli products and promoted the importance of substituting Palestinian alternatives, for the sake of Palestinian empowerment and capacity-building. 

Economic boycott campaigns in Palestine follow older models of boycott that have been used in different causes around the world. It is also not a new approach for Palestinians themselves as they have long adopted the economic boycott as a popular means of resistance, starting during the struggle to resist British colonialism and plans for Zionist occupation back in the 1920s. 

Israel’s former finance minister and its current alternate prime minister Yair Lapid shared his fear of boycott campaigns’ threat to Israel’s economy when he said that “Israel’s economy is more vulnerable than its national security.” BDS campaigns have already caused great losses to Israel’s economy by encouraging leading international companies to disinvest from Israel. According to a United Nations report, BDS campaigns were partly responsible for the reduction of 46% of direct foreign investments in Israel in 2014. The RAND Institute also estimated that the continuation of BDS boycott campaigns would lead to a loss of 1 to 2 percent of Israel’s local production, constituting an estimated loss of $28-$56 billion dollars in the upcoming 10 years.

While boycott is a successful model that has been used  in Palestine for years and has even succeeded in spreading to  international supporters who want to challenge policies of the occupation, it can not be denied that based on Palestinians’ unique challenges it is the hardest to carry out economic boycotts inside the occupied land. All Palestinians — in Gaza, the West Bank, and inside the lands occupied in 1948 — share the same disdain for Israel, and agree on the need to resist all apartheid and settler-colonial policies in order for their liberation and to realize the Palestinian right to return. However, the economic boycott as a means of resistance is still debated today.  Boycott campaigns in Palestine have always had to confront demoralizing voices claiming its inefficiency or unachievablity inside the occupied land. While the debate around economic boycott is legitimate based on the fact that the Palestinian struggle for liberation is multifaceted, and Palestinians of diverse background have always held varying views on accomplishing liberty, it also needs to be understood that, similar to earlier colonized nations’ pursuit of freedom, the Palestinian path of emancipation is a longstanding and ongoing educational project. It takes time for Palestinians to study and comprehend their occupier and dismantle its varied strategies of occupation. One of these strategies of occupation is centered around the occupier “controlling” the colonized psyche in order for it to assert dominance and sustain superiority. This is described by Frantz Fanon, Yukio Tsuda, Marcelo Dascal, and other scholars as “colonizing the mind” or “colonizing the consciousness”, and it would explain the origin of these discouraging voices concerning the efficiency of economic boycott as a means of liberation. It is also related to the feeling of deficiency and inferiority some Palestinians have when looking at Israel’s capabilities, and their feeling that Israel’s knowledge, commerce, products, and systems are better than anything they can come up with in Palestine. 

Thus, this article seeks to deconstruct and refute the five most widely held demoralizing claims about the boycott, with statistics and established facts. 

1. Israeli products are higher quality than Palestinian

First and foremost, it is crucial to look at Israeli products within the colonial context. These products are produced on stolen Palestinian lands, and the profit is plowed into settlement building, infrastructure development, and Judaization projects established in the occupation state. In addition, many companies directly support the Israeli military structure under the pretext of “social responsibility”. “Tnuva”, the Israeli dairy company, is a case in point. The company provides Israel’s army units with its dairy products and establishes training centers for them. It adopted the Egoz and Yael IDF units in 1995 and provided the needs of the Shaldag unit, the air force commando unit, in 2013. These, and a dozen of such other involvements, highlight how Israel’s economy is integral to its project of settler-colonialism.  

Regardless of this essential context, considering Israeli products’ quality as better than the Palestinian can also be refuted based on reports from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). According to OECD, Israel scored the highest rates of chemicals and toxic pesticides in its agro-products between 2008 and 2010. Around 7000 pounds of 670 different pesticides are sold in Israel annually for preserving and storing yield uses, or for detergents. Israel also sprays around 3.5kg of toxic pesticides on every single agricultural dunum. This outdoes Sweden — whose consumption of pesticides is considered the least in the world (0.04kg per dunum) — around 88 times, leaving its agro-products the most dangerous among western countries. This information highlights the fact that rather than providing its customers with healthy, good-quality products, profits are Israel’s highest priority. 

Consumers who tried the same product on both Palestinian and Israeli markets have pointed to the difference between the two, with the Palestinian being of lower quality. One Palestinian employee in an Israeli company noticed the existence of a separate Palestinian production line that is not subjected to sanitary vigilance. Another worker at the “Elite” factory, shared that products that do not correspond to safety, health, taste, distribution, and store standards are exported to Palestinian markets rather than being disposed of.

Mahmoud Kheil, the owner of one of the Palestinian mushroom farms that were forced to close by Israel in 2016 due to its competition with Israeli farms, says that Israel sells its low-quality products to Palestinians at the same prices as high-quality ones. What happened to a Palestinian child from Jerusalem when drinking Israeli “Materna” milk in 2009 confirms the aforementioned data. After feeling pain in his gut and conducting a medical examination, it appeared that the milk was contaminated with a higher concentration of Coliform reaching 3000 ml instead of being zero. It was later clarified by one of the “Materna” agents, that this milk is only sold on Palestinian markets.

It is also worth mentioning that the Palestinian product is sometimes judged to be less qualified than its Israeli competitor even before trying it. In order to deconstruct these stereotypes, there is a need to understand that this feeling of incompetence that Palestinians sometimes have is caused by the occupation colonial mentality that forces him to see himself as unqualified and internally defeated. Additionally, putting all aforementioned evidence aside, it is important to understand that it is not just a matter of free and fair competition on quality and taste with Israeli products, even if they are truly unbeatable. It is rather a matter of boycott that is based on the realization that Israel’s economy is an essential element of the settler-colonial and occupation system. While the economic boycott is a primary national necessity for Palestinians to weaken the economy of the occupation, it is also necessary to empower their national products that would pave the way for their economic independence and national liberation. 

2. Individual boycotts will not impact Israel’s economy

It is quite the reverse. Every individual participation in a boycott makes a difference.  Many earlier domestic and international boycott campaigns proved that accumulated individual actions would lead to quantitative and qualitative mass actions. The bus boycott against social segregation in the United States is an example to look at. It all started in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white person.

Looking locally inside Palestine, according to a report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), between the years 2013 and 2014, there was a 24% decrease in Palestinian imports from Israeli companies thanks to the boycott campaigns Israel is facing. In his interview with “Arabia Independent”, the BDS general coordinator Mahmoud Nawajaa explains how the Palestinian consumers’ persistence to boycott 10% of their Israeli products intake, would save 70,000 work opportunities for their unemployed graduated youth. Nawajaa clarifies that the Palestinian market in the West Bank is the second-largest export consumer of Israeli products following the United States market, with exports amounting to more than $4,400,000,000 annually. Accordingly, if  Palestinians continue to boycott Israeli products, companies will be harmed and forced to decrease their production. This, in turn, would enable Palestinian factories to produce more quantities to fulfill the Palestinian market requirements. Work opportunities will be granted for more Palestinians as a result of the production necessity for more hands, and factories will be challenged to sustain and develop their products’ quality. 

3. Palestinians cannot escape from dealing with Israeli institutions

It is sometimes claimed that boycott activism by Palestinians, especially for those who hold Israeli citizenship inside the occupied lands in 1948, is a non-starter as everything is under occupation. It is true! They are forced to contend with the occupation state and use its services, meaning they are subjected to a kind of forced normalization. However, here comes the necessity to differentiate between forced and voluntary normalization. On the one hand, similar to any other nation that was subjected to colonial systems in the world, Palestinians are forced into a coercive relationship with the occupation, such as using its hospitals, universities, and ports or trading with its currency. However, on the other hand, they are still decision-makers in the case of household consumption when the Palestinian alternative is available. Choosing to prioritize the Israeli product when the Palestinian exists is what is considered voluntary normalization that Palestinians should be aware of. 

What was re-proven during the latest uprising is that an economic boycott could be the first step toward Palestinians’ liberation. While Israel occupies the land and its people, Palestinians are still able to decide and aspire to independence. 

4. Palestinian products are expensive

It is generally true that Palestinian products are more expensive than Israeli competitors in terms of prices. However, it is important to look at this price difference as a consequence of the occupation dominance and industries’ monopolization policies. Israel aims to erode the Palestinian market, and turn it into a dependent consumer rather than an independent producer. The Israeli government’s economic policies adopt what is called “economies of scale”. When a big business has a high volume of operation and production, the cost per unit of the business’s output decreases and creates unchallenged competitive low prices. This, in turn, leads to a higher demand for the product and its increasing production enables greater price reduction and so on. Israel enters Palestinians into a production chain in which they think they need it. In fact, this consumer theory will not be applicable and will not run the hoped-for profits without the Palestinians’ consumption. 

Following this, the continuation of Palestinians’ subjection to the Israeli production chain only makes it harder for Palestinian products to compete with the Israeli prices, and for the Palestinian market to flourish and become independent. It is only after supporting the local Palestinian product, that the demand for it will go higher and prices will start to decrease and compete with the occupier’s. There are around two million Palestinians inside the occupied lands in ‘48, and more than 350,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem, in addition to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, who are game-changers. Palestinians constitute massive purchasing power which could lead to a great loss for Israel’s market, and help develop the Palestinian market and economy. 

5.  My participation will not make a difference, and will only threaten my career

Israel has long tried to force Palestinians to strive simply to live, to survive, and to forget about their national cause of liberation. Palestinian employees across Israeli sectors always assume their insignificance in Israel’s economy and have suffered from continuous threats of dismissal from employment. However, the recent political events in Palestine have proved the opposite, reassuring us that Palestinian labor is the backbone of Israel’s economy.

The all-out national strike, the “Dignity Strike,” in historic Palestine on May 18th of this year was the largest of its kind since the famous Palestinian strike in 1936, and was able to create a difference and harm Israel’s economy due to the participation of the majority of Palestinian workers in Israeli sectors. The case of the construction sector is a case in point. The sector is constituted of 241,000 masons, among them 60-65,000 West Bank Palestinians and another 90,000 from the occupied lands in 1948, which together produce around 66% of Israel’s domestic output annually (around $35 billion of Israel’s GDP). Palestinian workers in this sector are always subjected to degrading work conditions and are offered low pay and long hours, especially West Bank workers because they are not subjected to Israel’s employment laws. They also always have to worry about being easily expelled and replaced over the smallest thing including their national and political affiliation, which prevented them from participating in political strikes. However, the “Dignity Strike” was able to demonstrate the impressive power these workers have, when all united and committed to the national strike. This one-day strike cost the construction sector a considerable loss that has been estimated at ILS130 billion. 

The popularly-organized “Dignity Strike” proved as well that when Palestinian workers are united and organized, strikes and boycotts can lead to a maximization of Israel’s economic disruption. This is confirmed by what happened with the Palestinian architect Aya Baydosi from the occupied land who was suspended from her work at an Israeli architecture firm because of her commitment to the strike of dignity. However, she was hired by a Palestinian architecture firm right after, which created an alternative for her and encouraged other Palestinian employers to unite in creating alternatives for unemployed Palestinian employees after the strike.

Accordingly, continuing this support for workers allows us to hope in dismantling Israeli systems that are completely based on the manipulation and exploitation of Palestinian workers. In addition, it will create a direct mechanism for empowering Palestinian labor, and building the Palestinian economy’s autonomy. 

Translated by Nur Jabarin

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