Is BDS creating any POSITIVE change for the Palestinians? I am not sure...it seems in some ways to have actually made things more difficult for them by sowing a lot of chaos. For example - increased and overt cooperation with Israel and Arab states is imo more likely to lead towards a real solution for the Palestinians than BDS. While there is injustice and inequality occurring in the treatment of Palestinians and Arab Israeli's - comparing it to Apartheid is dishonest and buries the real issues.
Is BDS a successful strategy? It CAN be - but is it in the way it is being applied? Boycotts in and of themselves are absolutely a legitimate means of protest and free speech. But what is BDS's end goal - how is "success" measured? This doesn't seem clear.
An interesting article:
BDS: how a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the Israeli-Palestinian debate
The movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel – known as BDS – has been driving the world a little bit mad. Since its founding 13 years ago, it has acquired nearly as many enemies as the Israelis and Palestinians combined.
It has hindered the efforts of Arab states to fully break their own decades-old boycott in pursuit of increasingly overt cooperation with Israel. It has shamed the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah by denouncing its security and economic collaboration with Israel’s army and military administration. It has annoyed the Palestine Liberation Organization by encroaching on its position as the internationally recognised advocate and representative of Palestinians worldwide.
It has infuriated the Israeli government by trying to turn it into a leper among liberals and progressives. It has exasperated what is left of the Israeli peace camp by nudging the Palestinians away from an anti-occupation struggle and towards an anti-apartheid one. It has induced such an anti-democratic counter-campaign by the Israeli government that it has made Israeli liberals fear for the future of their country. And
it has caused major headaches for the Palestinians’ donor governments in Europe, which are pressured by Israel not to work with BDS-supporting organisations in the Palestinian territories, an impossible request given that nearly all major civil society groups in Gaza and the West Bank support the movement.
In the UK,
BDS has brought turmoil to courts and local councils, embroiling them in disputes over the legality of local boycotts of settlement goods. In the US, BDS has caused two dozen states to pass bills or issue orders inhibiting or penalising those boycotting Israel or its settlements,
pitting Israel’s allies against free speech advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union. It has ignited debates in Protestant churches in the US, some of the largest of which have divested from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation.
It has become the bane of college administrators, forced to adjudicate complaints from BDS-supporting professors and students that their free speech has been stifled, and claims by Zionist faculty, donors and undergraduates that their campuses have become “unsafe” spaces. It has pulled liberals toward greater support for the Palestinians, making Israel an increasingly partisan issue in the US, associated less with Democrats and progressives than with Trump, evangelicals and the far right....
