Opponents of Israel’s punishing war in the Gaza Strip have called for boycotts of companies they claim support Israeli policies, and have drawn millions of views on social media.
Customers, particularly in the Middle East, have refrained from patronizing companies like Starbucks and McDonald’s. The coffee giant has said in response to criticism that it is against all violence, while the fast-food chain has said it doesn’t support either side in the conflict.
The calls have dovetailed with an almost two-decade-old movement — called BDS for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions — that protests Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories by targeting businesses and institutions accused of aiding violations of Palestinian rights.
Over 18 years, BDS has pressured some companies to end investment in Israel, and others to pull operations out of the occupied West Bank. But the BDS movement’s overall effect on Israel’s economy is hard to conclusively measure and could be minimal, analysts say.
BDS is an organization run by a committee and has specific targets and strategies. It includes a coalition of Palestinian organizations, but is decentralized by design, endorsing a system in which activists decide what to target and how, if they agree with BDS’s principles.
It has found an influx of new adherents. By two months after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the beginning of the war, the hashtag #boycottisrael had about 340 million views on TikTok, and #BDS at least 3 billion, although the latter captures some posts on other topics. By January, there were almost half a million posts hashtagged #boycottisrael and 887,000 hashtagged #BDS on Instagram.
Some users, but not all, name-check BDS and direct followers to its website, despite largely not coordinating with its leadership. The BDS official account shared a post on Instagram last year voicing support of recent “grassroots” social media campaigns and endorsing new boycotting targets that had emerged organically.
“All peaceful popular efforts, including boycott and divestment … are justified and called for,” it said on Instagram in November, while simultaneously calling for a more targeted approach than it had sometimes seen on social media since Oct. 7.
Here’s what to know about the campaigns to boycott Israel:
