Russian Boycotts Are Making A Difference, But They’re Also Exposing A Glaring Double Standard
The Palestinian-led BDS movement has faced hostility since its inception - often labelled an extremist movement. The recent Russian boycotts have now exposed a deep, racist hypocrisy.
Whenever anyone asks me how long I’ve been involved in the BDS movement, I respond: “Formally, about three years and informally, since I was born.”
My response is part tongue-in-cheek sass but, mostly, I intend it as a genuine reflection of how intertwined BDS has been throughout my life.
When I was growing up, there was a list of restaurants we weren’t allowed to eat at and a list of shops we weren’t allowed to buy from. I didn’t know exactly where the list came from but I knew that my Dad’s uncle would send him an updated one every couple of months and that he had memorised it by heart so that every time I was unsure about a brand or product, I asked him for the tick of approval.
As a Palestinian kid growing up in the diaspora, boycott was what we did. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realised that a narrative had been spun around BDS that deemed something so inherent to my upbringing as ‘controversial’.
As a Muslim refugee growing up in Australia, I was already painfully aware that political actors and the media had crafted a narrative that actively harms refugees and people seeking asylum by demonising and alienating our experiences and identities. This narrative is the reason I spent most of my childhood dancing around the question of ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘Why don’t you celebrate Christmas?’. It’s also the reason why I spent the last three-and-a-half years leading a non-profit that aims to change the narrative around refugees and people seeking asylum.
I arrived in Australia as a stateless Palestinian refugee on February 23, 1997, almost exactly 25 years before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Like everyone else, I followed closely on news outlets and social media. It wasn’t long before the hypocrisy of governments and media became glaringly apparent. I watched video after video of news reporters expressing their shock and horror that Ukrainians are ‘like us’ and that ‘this is Europe’.
The difference in response to brown and black refugees over the last two decades has only been possible because of the racist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic narratives that politicians and the media have spun with no accountability whatsoever. This extends to the narratives they have spun about our reception, as well as our resistance.
The BDS Double Standard
Since its inception in 2005, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has faced ongoing hostility from the mainstream media and politicians. As a BDS organiser, I’ve seen the narrative around BDS be labelled ‘unreasonable’ at best or ‘extremist’ at worst.
The most recent example of this in the Australian context is the backlash we received in response to the Sydney Festival Boycott Campaign that we launched in December 2021. Our campaign was labelled as ‘censorship’, ‘unjustifiable’ and even as ‘cancel culture of an entire country’.
Time and time again, BDS activists and organisers have had to explain and justify our evidence and reasoning for the use of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions as instruments in the attainment of human rights. We have described the BDS movement as Palestinian-led movement that stands for freedom, justice and equality. We have told our personal stories of exile and how Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, perpetrating human rights abuses, and denying Palestinian refugees like my family and I our right to return home despite this being enshrined in international law.
Over and over, we have cited the effectiveness of the international boycott against South African apartheid and the multiple reports from international human rights organisations that confirm Israel is an apartheid state, the most recent of which was published by Amnesty International. We have explained that our campaigns are strategic and transparent, with clear targets and well-defined demands.
For years, anti-Zionist Jewish allies have been in solidarity with us, also calling for international support of the BDS movement and actively pushing back against attempts to conflate the BDS movement with antisemitism. Despite the strong evidence-base and moral justification behind our call, the BDS movement has been under constant threat of being criminalised in Australia and around the world.
In May 2019, BDS organisers around the world launched an international campaign calling for a boycott of Eurovision which was being held on occupied Palestinian land in Yaffa (Tel Aviv). For months, we begged for a cultural boycott of Israel for their crimes against humanity and we were met with responses calling our campaign an ‘attack’ on Eurovision’s alleged ‘spirit of togetherness’.
It took less than a week for the Russian football team to be banned from FIFA competitions.
This response completely disregards that Israel prevents Palestinians from pursuing their right to artistic and cultural expression and continues to dispossess, persecute and punish Palestinian artists and performers.
It took less than a week for Russia to be boycotted from the Eurovision contest.
For decades, Palestinians have been calling on FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, to sanction Israel from taking part in their competitions. In October 2017, FIFA made the decision to allow clubs that play in illegal Israeli settlements to continue to compete and ‘refraining from imposing any sanctions’ despite Israel’s ongoing and violent attacks on Palestinian athletes and sports facilities.
It took less than a week for the Russian football team to be banned from FIFA competitions.
A Strategic Approach Is Needed
It’s true that the speed at which corporations and governments have supported boycotts, divestments, and sanctions of Russia indicate that these policy levers are possible when politically favourable.
However, there is also an important distinction to be made between the sanctions on Russia and the BDS movement. One of the biggest strengths of the BDS movement has always been that demands are clearly defined, campaign targets are strategic, and the movement aims to hold the state of Israel accountable to its legal obligations under international law.
The BDS movement does not aim to target or decimate the Israeli economy, like the sanctions imposed on Russia are likely to do because we know that such an approach would hit the most marginalised in society the hardest: the Palestinians.
The BDS movement is grounded in human rights and, as part of this, companies that are targeted are often security companies like G4S and Elbit Systems that are complicit in human rights abuses against Palestinians. The BDS movement is thus anti-war rather than a tactic of war. It’s about abolishing systems and structures that oppress, rather than punishing individual actors.
There is no doubt that the tools of boycott, divestment, and sanctions are effective in the pursuit of justice, but they must be employed strategically and ethically in order to achieve their desired impact.
Palestinians Know: BDS Works
The reality of the matter is that BDS works: the push-back that Palestinians have received from the Zionist lobby for organising around BDS is proof of this. The willingness of corporations, governments, and the media to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Russia is also proof that international pressure can work and is possible.
However, it’s time we stop seeing the human rights of some populations as more worthy or urgent than others. It’s time we start seeing all resistance against occupation legitimate and worth supporting. It’s time we start seeing boycott, divestment, sanctions as effective and necessary tools to achieving justice everywhere and for everyone — from the Uyghurs to the Palestinians to the Kashmiris.
Most importantly, it’s important that these tools are employed in a way that is strategic and grounded in international law and human rights.
Jeanine Hourani is a queer Palestinian activist, organiser, and storyteller. She is the director of Road to Refuge, an organisation that aims to change the narrative around refugees and people seeking asylum.
Photo Credit: Matt Hrkac/Flickr