5 big wins and 5 big setbacks for BDS

The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement  against the Israeli occupation is a campaign started by Palestinian civil society in 2005 that aims to pressure Israel into complying with international law and granting Palestinian citizens their rights.

More importantly, the campaign allows people from all over the world to take part in the fight against the Israeli state and its policies. Protests and conferences in support of the movement have been held around the globe, and supporters of BDS include academics, politicians, artists, and organizations as well as Israeli citizens.

BDS and its effect has been downplayed time and time again by supporters of Zionism, who try to dismiss it as nothing more than an over ambitious attempt to bring down the state of Israel. It is often framed as an anti-Semitic campaign. However, if you examine the facts, you can easily see that BDS has been quite successful. This is the reason for the counter measures and the calls for anti-BDS policies, causing setbacks for the campaign.

Here are 5 of the biggest wins for BDS and 5 of the movement's biggest setbacks.

BDS managed to set a worldwide precedent for the academic boycott of Israel when the University of Johannesburg cut all formal institutional agreements with Ben-Gurion University in Israel, following a campaign backed by more than 400 South African academics.

After a meeting with BDS, Norway’s Minister of Finance Kristin Halvorsen announced that the Norwegian State Pension Fund had sold its $5.4 million shares in Elbit Systems, an Israeli military company involved in building Israel's occupation wall. Twelve other European finance institutions also excluded Elbit from their portfolios.

After blockades, demonstrations, lobbying, boycotts and legal action in more than 13 European countries Agrexco, Israel's former largest exporter of agricultural produce, entered liquidation without any investors interested in attempting to salvage it due to the bad reputation the campaign had given the company.

Several artists have refused to perform or make appearances in Israel in protest of the occupation, especially following pressure from the BDS movement. These include Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc Godard, Roger Waters, Vanessa Paradis, Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron, Carlos Santana, Devendra Banhart, Faithless, the Pixies and Arundhati Roy among others.

G4S is one of the biggest security and imprisonment firms in the world, and it has announced plans to end all ties with Israel within the next 12 to 24 months. Previously, BDS had managed to get the European Parliament not to renew a contract with the company due to its work with the Israeli Prison Service.

A resolution was passed condemning the campaign, calling for constructive dialogue rather than political and economic isolation of Israel. The Virginia House of Delegates also mentioned that boycotts were attacking the legitimacy of the state of Israel as the sovereign homeland of the Jewish people.

This happened after a group of pro-Israel students called for the condemnation of antisemitism as defined by the US State Department, which includes certain forms and levels of criticizing Israel. The student government removed the debate about the BDS resolution completely.

Opponents of the BDS movement spread the word about Vassar's pro-BDS policy on campus, which lead to the president assuring alumni and "big Jewish donors" that the college was not anti-semitic, and that it would work hard to include pro-Israel activities in its program.

After a bill condemning the anti-Israeli campaign was put forward by the conservative party of Canada, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported it . If the bill passes, all forms of boycotting Israel will be condemned by the government as acts of anti-semitism.

In order to counter the effects of the BDS movement, Congress has submitted a new measure  that urges the U.S. to explore new agreements with Israel. These explorations include the fields of energy, security technology, water, agriculture, medicine, neurotechnology and cybersecurity.