The BDS Movement and Israel: Explaining Mobilization and Counter-Mobilization

Ian Lustick and Nathaniel Shils

Relative to the volume of advocacy-based writing about BDS, which has sought to explain why and how it should be either advanced or defeated, there has been a paucity of social science scholarship on the movement. Moreover, much of what exists has focused exclusively on either BDS or Israeli responses to it, rarely studying how they are entangled. In a recent article, published in 2022 in the journal Israel Studies Review, we analyze the history of boycott and anti-boycott mobilization using the same conceptual-analytic framework and assess alternative explanations for their trajectories.

The article analyzes these patterns of mobilization using two “conceptual models” of politics, which we call the “rationalist,” or “strategic learning” model, and the “political competition” model. We ask how much of the trajectories of BDS and anti-BDS mobilization can be attributed to experience and learning, and how much can be explained by the outcome of struggles among rivals within Palestinian and Israeli politics to gain prominence, resources, and influence. We use each of these models to trace the development of the BDS movement and Israeli responses, dividing their trajectories into “phases” or “periods” divided by inflection points. Both models highlight distinct features of mobilization and counter-mobilization.

Rationalist accounts depict BDS as a relatively unitary, consensus-based, and broadly representative movement. Its development is explained as a strategic adaptation to changing circumstances, guided by the leadership of the Boycott National Committee (BNC). The origins of BDS are commonly traced to the 2001 Durban Conference, where civil society groups called for a boycott against Israel similar to that which had been organized against apartheid South Africa. Following several years of decentralized experimentation with boycotts by members of the Palestine solidarity movement, the BDS movement was formally launched in 2005. In a first phase of development, which lasted until late 2008, the movement’s focus was on establishing its core organizational structure, crystallizing its platform and methods, and expanding its networks of support. During the second phase, from late 2008-2016, the movement expanded rapidly in response to opportunities that arose from Israel’s wars in Gaza and the growth of progressive movements abroad. Although this growth had little material impact on Israel, it contributed to shifting the terms of discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a third phase, which began following the first election of Donald Trump in 2016, BDS entered a period of intensified struggle, experiencing both grassroots growth and increasing legal challenges, as the movement exploited political polarization around the rise of the new Right in the US and Europe.

The other model for explaining the trajectory of BDS considers how competition among Palestinians and their supporters has influenced mobilizational patterns. While some Palestinian interest groups benefit from the BDS program, it is detrimental to others. This fact explains why there is more contestation and less compliance with BDS than the movement’s rhetoric of consensus and national unity suggests. The main division is between grassroots civil society activists and the leadership of the PA and PLO. Unlike in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, where international pressure was accompanied by non-cooperation campaigns within the country and supported by South African resistance organizations, the BDS movement has not mobilized a comparable level of internal action or received comparable support from the PA and PLO. BDS activists frequently accuse the PA of having inhibited the movement’s growth. 

The contestation over BDS among Palestinians can be divided into three periods. In the first, from 2005-2009, BDS posed a challenge to the Palestinian leadership without renouncing diplomacy or the state building project. Rather, organizers emphasized the need to expand international diplomacy in the pursuit of a post-Oslo strategy to apply pressure to Israel. To protect vital clientelist networks and ensure aid in fending off challenges from Hamas, the PA and PLO resisted BDS demands to turn away from cooperation and bilateral negotiations with Israel. A brief second period between 2010 and 2011 saw tentative convergence when, in response to grassroots pressure and in search of popular legitimacy, the PA began to support a national boycott of products from Israeli settlements. When the PA abandoned enforcement of this selective boycott, a third period began, characterized by increasingly antagonistic rivalry between the PA and civil society groups, including BDS. In this phase, the PA has periodically halted security coordination with Israel, and the PLO even announced official adoption of BDS in 2018, but these commitments have thus far been only weak, short-lived tactical campaigns of non-cooperation.

Israeli-led mobilization against boycotts can likewise be explained using rationalist and political competition models. In the first phase of the rationalist model, 2001-2008, most Israeli strategists, policymakers, and “pro-Israel” activists considered BDS as insufficiently consequential to treat it as a real threat. After this initial underestimation, a surge of BDS activism in response to Operation Cast Lead in 2009 and Israel’s seizure of the Mavi Marmora in 2010 led to a reassessment. The common conclusion was that although BDS still did not pose a serious economic challenge and was mainly an irritation in the cultural and legal arenas, it posed a major threat of delegitimization. Participants in these debates agreed about the need to mobilize resources to confront this threat, albeit without agreeing on how to conduct these campaigns, resulting in a phase of fragmented mobilization. The third phase began after the release of the State Comptroller’s report that criticized the Israeli government’s response to BDS. This phase saw a convergence on how to combat BDS through a combination of state supported surveillance, clandestine action, and programs to bolster “pro-Israel” networks in ways that would enable them to respond locally and semi-autonomously to BDS initiatives.

The political competition model explains the development of counter-BDS mobilization as a struggle between two camps of political elites: the bitkhonistim who define Israel’s security threats in terms of “hard power,” and a set of competitors who focus on “soft-power” challenges of international delegitimization. These two camps of analysts and Israel advocates have each sought to define the threats facing Israel and prescribe responses that played into their comparative advantages.

A first period of competition began when the soft-power advocates began to advocate for a concerted response to the emergence of BDS and, shortly thereafter, the international public relations debacle of the 2006 Lebanon War. During this period, the “hard-power” bitkhonistim continued to dismiss BDS as insignificant. The second period, which began in 2010 following the increased visibility of BDS, was characterized by messy competition for resources among Israeli groups and organizations with different comparative advantages, which produced a disjointed set of uncoordinated and inconsistent policies. A third period, initiated by responses to the 2016 State Comptroller’s report, saw convergence on a coordinated strategy for defining and combatting BDS that united the previously competing camps. This convergence represented a victory for the soft-power advocates and acceptance by the hard-power specialists of the reality that BDS posed real threats to Israel’s legitimacy with potentially devastating long-term consequences. Although the political maneuvering of successive governments has produced modulations in its implementation, the official Israeli policy towards BDS remained relatively consistent.

In conclusion, our analysis of both BDS and anti-BDS mobilization suggests that the rational strategic action by members of both communities has been mediated and limited by internal competition. Looking at the fights over BDS as part of a long-term struggle over the scope and vocabularies of contestation helps explain why the failure of BDS to have a significant material impact on Israel’s economy is a false measure of its potential. The movement has been a major player in shifting the terms of discourse and engagement around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in major metropolitan centers around the world. This impact is perceptible if subtle, and its full implications become apparent during periods of intensified contestation over global engagement with Israel.

Ian S. Lustick is the Bess W. Heyman Professor, Emeritus, in the Political Science Department of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Nathaniel Shils is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Amherst College.

This post is based on the following article:
Ian Lustick and Shils, Nathaniel. 2022. “The Palestinians, Israel, and BDS: Strategies and Struggles in Wars of Position.” Israel Studies Review 37(3): 28-57. https://doi.org/10.3167/isr.2022.370303.