For two decades, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement has proved that power doesn’t solely reside with states or corporations, but with ordinary people acting together. What began in 2005 as a call from Palestinian civil society for non-violent resistance has evolved into one of the most consequential global justice movements of the twenty-first century. BDS has shown us that solidarity is capable of materially constraining an apartheid regime’s ability to sustain itself.
Israel’s own officials have admitted that “boycotts and BDS have changed Israel’s global trade landscape.” Its economy, once shielded by Western impunity, is now marked by declining investment, disrupted exports, and reputational risk severe enough to force multinational corporations, sovereign funds, and universities to withdraw their complicity. Each divestment, challenged the infrastructure of normalisation that allows genocide, occupation, and apartheid to continue.
Israel fears BDS, because it reveals that power can flow upward from the ground. The movement’s successes across spheres reconfigure global accountability. BDS has made it increasingly untenable for any government, corporation, or university to claim neutrality in the face of systematic atrocity.
The significance of this moment cannot be overstated. From the halls of the International Court of Justice to the campuses of Dublin and San Francisco, the movement has redefined what it means to resist colonial domination in the modern world. International law, when ignored by states, can be enforced by people.
Israel calls BDS an existential threat. It’s right to do so for what threatens apartheid most is the cumulative power of conscience. You have that power. Use it.
