The latest aggressive military attack on Gaza since 7th July 2014, increased a boycott of Israeli produce in the West Bank. The BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions) movement was founded in 2005, when more than 170 Palestinians civil society organizations called on people across the globe to hold Israel accountable and isolate it until it implements international law and ends its violations of Palestinian human rights.
With the beginning of the massacre in the Gaza Strip, more Palestinians and local shops across the West Bank have decided to join the consumer boycott and stop buying and selling Israeli goods. Posters calling to join the consumer boycott are everywhere across the Westbank. In Ramallah, shop owners have put stickers on Israeli goods which alert their clients that 16 percent of the profit will benefits the Israeli army. This deters most Palestinian consumers from buying Israeli products and support the ongoing occupation.
According to Ahmad Melhem, Contributor of Al-Monitor, US-News, the sale of Israeli goods has dropped to 50 % over the last weeks.
A shop owner in Ramallah, who wrote a sign announcing that he is selling off the last stock of Israeli goods and does not plan to reorder new ones, talked to us and explained his reasons to join the local boycott movement: “We established this store in 2008 and we are selling Israeli goods since then. We joined the consumer boycott since 15 days, because our customers now refuse to buy Israeli goods and because we decided to support the people in Gaza“.
The growing BDS movement has shown already their effects at international level. Only recently, Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid called the recent increased withdraws and disinvestments by international companies a strategic threat for the Israeli economy. So the ongoing economic boycott has to continue nationally and globally to put a pressure on the Israel for it to end its policies of occupation, apartheid and colonialism.