Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights [Paperback]

Omar Barghouti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2011

“I have been to Palestine where I’ve witnessed the racially segregated housing and the humiliation of Palestinians at military roadblocks. I can’t help but remember the conditions we experienced in South Africa under apartheid. We could not have achieved our freedom without the help of people around the world using the nonviolent means of boycotts and divestment to compel governments and institutions to withdraw their support for the apartheid regime. Omar Barghouti’s lucid and morally compelling book is perfectly timed to make a major contribution to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.”
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu

THIRTY YEARS ago, an international movement utilizing boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) tactics rose in solidarity with those suffering under the brutal apartheid regime of South Africa. The historic acts of BDS activists from around the world isolated South Africa as a pariah state and heralded the end of apartheid.

Now, as awareness of the apartheid nature of the State of Israel continues to grow, Omar Barghouti, founding member of the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, presents a renewed call to action. Aimed at forcing the State of Israel to uphold international law and universal human rights for the Palestinian people, here is a manifesto for change.

“No one has done more to build the intellectual, legal and moral case for BDS than Omar Barghouti. The global Palestinian solidarity movement has been transformed and is on the cusp of major new breakthroughs.”
—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo

"There is no more comprehensive and persuasive case than his for boycott, divestment, and sanctions to end the Israeli occupation and establish the ethical claim of Palestinian rights.”
—Judith Butler, University of California at Berkeley

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Haymarket Books (March 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608461149
• ISBN-13: 978-1608461141
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #631,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian commentator and human rights activist. He is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University, NY, and a master's degree in philosophy (ethics) from Tel Aviv University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Haymarket Books (March 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608461149
• ISBN-13: 978-1608461141
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #631,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars clear, intelligent and compelling October 15, 2012

By Adam A. Waterhouse

Format:Paperback

Omar Barghouti can fairly be described as the main figurehead of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement and anyone reading this book will understand why. Barghouti argues the case for BDS with intelligence, passion, and compelling moral force. After briefly reminding us of the sad state of affairs whereby the US consistently provides Israel with complete impunity from consequences for its on-going oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, Barghouti introduces boycott as a tactic whereby citizens of conscience throughout the world can seek to put pressure upon Israel to respect the legal and human rights of the indigenous people of that land.

Barghouti then goes on to discuss the concern already generated within Israel by the call for boycott, and the fear evidenced by politicians and commentators of Israel becoming a pariah state. Israel, it seems wants the best of both worlds (in its own terms) - permission to oppress and dispossess the Palestinians and still be held up as a bastion of culture and civilisation! Therein lies its 'weakness' (or perhaps its saving grace) as the possibility exists, through boycott and divestment, to persuade the Israeli politicians and the Israeli public who vote for them that continuing along the path of oppression and discrimination just isn't worth it.

This is no more oppressive than the actions of a caring parent who withholds a privilege from a young child who has hit another child. The aim is not to punish them for its own sake, but to educate them that violence towards other children is not acceptable. Similarly the aim of BDS is simply to teach Israeli politicians and the public who support them that they must start to treat the indigenous population of the land they are occupying with respect and dignity.... Nothing less will be acceptable. Treating the Palestinians with respect and dignity will not signal the death or destruction of Israel or Israelis (let along 'the Jews') but rather the birth of Israel as a decent and responsible nation which promotes and respects the rights of all people.

The book includes individual chapters on the lessons drawn from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the call for an academic boycott, the call for a cultural boycott, and responses to anti-boycott arguments. Barghouti demonstrates an impressive awareness of the areas of ambiguity and confusion generated by these issues and does his best to address them. With respect to the cultural and academic boycott the point is made that this does not apply to individual Israeli artists or academics but only to artistic or academic institutions which can be fairly considered to be complicit in Israeli apartheid through their tacit or explicit support for the status quo. It should be noted that this includes theatre and dance companies which accept state funding on the basis that they will "promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel" and academic institutions providing Israel's military intelligence establishment with indispensible research on demography, geography, and hydrology which is used by the Israeli military to plan and carry out the theft of Palestinian land and water resources, and the slow-paced ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from their land.

The book is a little bit disjointed in the later chapters which don't seem to follow on from one another in any particular order. However, I did not feel that this detracted from the quality of the book, for me, since each of these later chapters is self-contained and the quality of Barghouti's commentary and analysis is consistently high.

I would not recommend this book to someone new to this topic. This is a book that seems to assumes a certain amount of background knowledge. For anyone new or relatively new to this issue I would recommend `Israeli Apartheid A Beginner's Guide' by Ben White, `Peace not Apartheid' by Jimmy Carter, or `Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians' by Baruch Kimmerling - which although a bit dated now gives a particularly clear picture of the dynamic that have shaped and created this sad and regrettable situation. Read more ›

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars So much potential, so little follow through August 15, 2011

By Christopher M. Whitman Jr.

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book reads like a collection of editorials instead of a fluid operational text of how to start a BDS movement. He says all the "right" things for his readers, South Africa this, peace that, but misses many fundamentals. He ignores the American involvement in the debate completely. If you are interested for a critique of the BDS movement, here it is
[..]
Mr Barghouti falls under the same problems as are mentioned here, just spanned over 300pgs.

8 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars BDS THE GLOBAL STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS August 25, 2011

By Ishak27

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

It's a great disclosure of injustice experience by Palestinian, which all the western world try to hide it.
Double standard of human right by western in defense of zionist racism and inhuman treatment to Palestinian

13 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Educational gem April 5, 2011

By StarStruck

Format:Paperback

I learned so much from reading this one book. Maybe that is the problem with this book. It will open the eyes of those who are clueless about the life of Palestinians under brutal Izzraeli occupation.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Starting Point February 8, 2013

By Barbara Young

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

It is always difficult to confront a situation and at times feel helpless. This book will start anyone on the path to doing the right thing.

9 of 19 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Omar Barghouti is completing a PhD at Tel Aviv University August 27, 2012

By Pastafari

Format:Paperback

Tel Aviv University is one of the schools targeted by the BDS campaign. Need more be said about the "integrity" of this author or this movement?

4 of 18 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars vile campaign to starve out the Jews August 31, 2012

By Gary Selikow

Format:Paperback

Another foul rant by a child-killing terrorist aimed at stamping out a democratic micro-state and it's five million people, through starving out the Jews.
Nazi Germany also began it's campaign to annihilate the Jews of Europe by economic boycotts of Jewish businesses and today the modern day equivalents of the Nazis wear not brown shirts but keffiyahs and red, white, green and black colours as they try to terrorize shoppers and shop workers in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Sidney and Cape Town not to buy or sell Israeli goods.
Stave out the Jews. Make sure the will of the Jewish people is sapped by seeing their children go hungry.
Ironically the same people who urge boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel also caterwauled against sanctions on Iraq during the bloody rule of their hero Saddam Hussein. Crying that it caused starvation of children. They were enraged by the hunger of Iraqi children but support the starvation of Israeli children

But we not allowed to call them anti-Semitic.

The enemies of Israel want the physical elimination of the Jewish people from the Land of Israel. This constitutes anti-Semitism. The point is that they want a Judenreihn "Palestine" the same way that Hitler wanted a Judenreihn Europe. The anti-Zionists claim that they are not anti-Semites but that think the only country on the earth that must be annihilated is Israel. The anti-Zionists claim that they are not anti-Semites but that think the only country on the earth that must be annihilated is Israel. The anti-Zionists claim that they are not anti-Semites but that the only children on earth whose being blown up is okay if it serves a good cause are Jewish children.... As regards the so-called 1 state solution favoured by so many sophisticated leftwing intellectuals today, we can discuss this all day and all night , but dismembering Israel into a single Arab dominated state means a second holocaust. It means methodical massacre of millions of Jews , of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children. Anyone who pushes for this '1 state solution' is actually pushing for a second holocaust. Denying a nation's right to exist is genocidal racism, akin to Nazism, hence in my opinion ,Aanti-Zionism is Nazism. Only the hard-hearted, hate-filled and cowardly will deny Israel the right to exist and defend herself. One must always continue to ask why the powerful organizations, unions, church groups, academics ,governments etc advocate a boycott of Israel and only Israel, while not advocating any boycott or censure of States that do enage in genocide or severe repression and persecution like China, North Korea, Zimbabwe,Syria Iran or Sudan. THEY NEVER have an answer! Read more ›